There’s been a lot of chatter over the last two years or so about recession predictions, and why some smart economists have been so wrong so far. There are no definitive answers, even if some explanations look potentially informative, if not exactly kind for the dismal scientists who stumbled. But we’ll leave that for another day… well, maybe not entirely. The ever-perceptive Noah Smith (who moonlights as an assistant finance professor at Stony Brook when he’s not blogging) weighs in, albeit inadvertently and through the thought experiment of pondering “A world without macroeconomists?” Along the way, he observes that taking the numbers at face value, with minimal if any theory, can still tell us something useful at times, but not without complaints — “Measurement Without Theory,” as Koopmans famously charged (pdf).

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First-quarter US GDP is expected to increase 3.2%, according to the latest update of The Capital Spectator’s average econometric nowcast. That’s virtually unchanged from the previous 3.1% nowcast, published on March 19. (GDP percentage changes are quoted as real seasonally adjusted annual rates.)

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