Web: www.gwu.edu/~iiep Okun’s Law in Real Time

This comment on Ball et al (2014) compares their findings on the role of Okun’s Law in forecasts and fully revised data with real-time data for the G7 countries plus Australia and New Zealand. Ball et al find that the Okun’s Law relationship in Consensus forecasts is consistent with that in fully revised data. We show that the same relationship is weaker in the initial releases as recorded in the OECD real-time database