Word: helping
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What might help us better use economic forecasts, then, is to more explicitly take into account the limits that come with any forecast. You wouldn't find an economist publishing a paper in a journal without margins of error around the data - and yet we routinely drop such nuance when we talk about economic variables in public conversation. "One of the things that gets lost is the fact that there are ways of trying to assess errors in forecasts," says Robert Eisenbeis, a former researcher at the Atlanta Fed who is now chief monetary economist at the money-management firm...
Highlighting the imprecision embedded in any forecast would help when we then go on to, say, evaluate whether a public-policy initiative - like a $787 billion stimulus package - is changing the outcome of events. Is unemployment lower than it would have been otherwise? A good starting point is being realistic about our limits of knowing what unemployment would have been otherwise...
...from July 6 to Aug. 21. The Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services (OAODS) will be closed the week of Aug. 10, and the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR) will be closed for the month of July. All of the changes were made to help maximize services during the academic year, when most students are on campus, according to the statements on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Planning Web site...
...entrance to the Pusey Library would be closed at the end of July, and that patrons could access the Harvard University Archives, the Harvard Map Collection, and the Harvard Theatre Collection staff offices via Lamont Library's main entrance instead. The announcement said that closing Pusey's door would help avoid security, custodial, and utility expenditures that could be redirected to other library programs and services instead. —Staff writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu...
...divides economists is whether China's growth spurt is sustainable. Goldman Sachs and several other major investment banks are increasing their China growth forecasts for the rest of this year and into 2010. Strong retail sales and household-survey data show that consumption is contributing to growth and may help sustain it even if government spending levels off. (See pictures of China's investment in Africa...