Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, provides the nation with a safe, flexible, and stable monetary and financial system.

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Real-time Historical Estimates of the Output Gap Accessible Data

Figure 1: The evolution of the Federal Reserve Board’s output gap estimates

Figure 1 shows how the Greenbook estimate of the output gap changed over time from 1996 to 2013; each line represents the estimate produced for the December FOMC meeting in a specific year. There are 18 lines in the figure and they are somewhat close to each other. The output gap estimates are strongly procyclical and the largest disagreements happen during recoveries, whereas the estimates are very close during recessions.

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Last Update: October 15, 2019

Accessible Version

Real-time Historical Estimates of the Output Gap Accessible Data

Figure 1: The evolution of the Federal Reserve Board’s output gap estimates