William Chen, Marco Del Negro, Keshav Dogra, Shlok Goyal, and Alissa Johnson

This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since June 2020.

As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A. Note that interactive charts are now available for DSGE model forecasts.

In response to the pandemic, the New York Fed’s DSGE model has been modified because the economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 are likely different from standard business cycles. The model now includes additional shocks designed to reflect phenomena like lockdowns and social distancing (the model description on the GitHub page describes these changes in some detail). To incorporate the substantial uncertainty surrounding future economic activity, we construct three possible scenarios, described below, that differ in the projected severity of the pandemic and its effects on economic behavior. Our final forecast combines these individual scenarios by weighting them according to our a priori views on how likely each scenario is. The weights on the three scenarios are 80, 10, and 10 percent, respectively. We partly inform these views using the most recent (August) Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) probabilistic survey for year-over-year 2020 GDP growth.

Daniel Lewis, Karel Mertens, and James Stock



At the end of March, we launched the Weekly Economic Index (WEI) as a tool to monitor changes in real activity during the pandemic. The rapid deterioration in economic conditions made it important to assess developments as soon as possible, rather than waiting for monthly and quarterly data to be released. In this post, we describe how the WEI has measured the effects of COVID-19. So far in 2020, the WEI has synthesized daily and weekly data to measure GDP growth remarkably well. We document this performance, and we offer some guidance on evaluating the WEI’s forecasting abilities based on 2020 data and interpreting WEI updates and revisions.

William Chen, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, and Reca Sarfati

Editor’s note: The release of the March 2020 DSGE forecast was postponed as New York Fed economists shifted their focus to the COVID-19 pandemic. In conjunction with the release of the June 2020 forecast, we’ve decided to post the March 2020 forecast for the record as well.

Ozge Akinci, William Chen, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, and Reca Sarfati

Editor’s note: The release of the March 2020 DSGE forecast was postponed as New York Fed economists shifted their focus to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the June 2020 forecast now out, we’ve decided to post this forecast for the record as well.


This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since December 2019. As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A.

Patrick Adams, Tobias Adrian, Nina Boyarchenko, Domenico Giannone, Nellie Liang, and Eric Qian



The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has been sharp. Real U.S. GDP growth in the first quarter of 2020 (advance estimate) was -4.8 percent at an annual rate, the worst since the global financial crisis in 2008. Most forecasters predict much weaker growth in the second quarter, ranging widely from an annual rate of -15 percent to -50 percent as the economy pauses to allow for social distancing. Although growth is expected to begin its rebound in the third quarter absent a second wave of the pandemic, the speed of the recovery is highly uncertain. In this post, we estimate the risks around the modal forecast of GDP growth as a function of financial conditions. Tighter financial conditions led to a widening in the left tail of the distribution of 2020 growth before weekly economic indicators showed any deterioration. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury took aggressive actions to reduce financial stresses and support credit flows—moves aimed at stemming long-lasting impacts from steep economic losses. While GDP growth will depend primarily on the speed with which many activities can be resumed safely, the improved financial conditions in April have reduced the likelihood that financial conditions and real growth will jointly deteriorate in the next few quarters.

William Chen, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, Reca Sarfati, and Andrea Tambalotti

This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since September 2019. As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A.

Ozge Akinci, William Chen, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, and Reca Sarfati

This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since June 2019. As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A.

Patrick Adams, Domenico Giannone, Eric Qian, and Argia Sbordone



The New York Fed Staff Nowcast has been running for over three years. Each Friday at 11:15 a.m., we publish our updated predictions for real GDP growth based on the data released each week. When the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) releases the first estimate of GDP growth, we stop updating our nowcast and archive it. We maintain these archives as part of our Nowcasting Report on the New York Fed’s public website to allow users to study the features of the nowcast and its accuracy. Now, to better understand the model and its performance during different cyclical episodes, we are publishing extended historical archives of the nowcast. Doing so provides fourteen additional years of forecasts that can be used not only to evaluate our nowcast model, but also to explore daily U.S. economic history through the model’s lens.

Sushant Acharya, Michael Cai, Marco Del Negro, Ethan Matlin, and Reca Sarfati

This post presents an update of the economic forecasts generated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We describe very briefly our forecast and its change since January 2019. As usual, we wish to remind our readers that the DSGE model forecast is not an official New York Fed forecast, but only an input to the Research staff’s overall forecasting process. For more information about the model and variables discussed here, see our DSGE model Q & A.

Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy



In our previous post, we presented a new measure of first-time homebuyers. In this post, we use this improved measure to describe the characteristics of first-time buyers and how those characteristics change over time. Having an accurate assessment of first-time buyers is important given that the aim of many housing policies is to support the transition from renting to owning. A proper assessment of these housing policies requires an understanding of the impact of these policies on the share of first-time buyers and the characteristics of these buyers. Our third post will directly examine the sustainability of homeownership by first-time buyers.