Recession risk, Bank of England forecasts, booster forecasts scored

This issue: Bank of England forecasts, booster forecasts scored, recession risk roundup

No new forecast today: This issue is all scores and comparisons
First, a recap of what readers think the Bank of England will do
Then, how your Covid booster forecasts turned out
Finally, a roundup of recession forecasts from around the web

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How far will the Bank of England hike interest rates?

Last weekend, Nonrival covered the economic crisis in the UK and asked:

How likely is it that the Bank of England announces a rate increase of 1 percentage point or more in its Nov. 3 meeting?

Since then, the government has partly reversed its course. It's said it'll scrap one of the tax cuts, and will release a plan for addressing UK debt this month rather than next.

What readers said

So will the Bank of England raise rates by a full point or more? Readers see this one as a toss-up. The average of readers' forecasts was 52%, so about as likely as not.

The average reader forecast was 52%.

Reader perspectives on the Bank of England

UK economy will crash before Nov3 or still be teetering such that they'll choose 0.5% again. Truss has already backed off the tax cuts (10%)

Things are stabilizing somewhat in the UK with the Truss govt making U-turns on parts of the fiscal plan. There's a strong argument for the BOE to continue with smaller increases as planned (30%)

Central banks have been less bold than I expected. I don’t expect Britain’s to counter new government stimulus too quickly. (30%)

A full percentage point is a lot. They'll likely prefer .75 unless inflation data or a currency plunge really seems like it requires drastic action. On the other side of the ledger, they'll worry about the financial reaction to such a steep hike (though some of that will price itself in). (45%)

Cancellation of the Truss budget may pull them back, but generally seems like they need to get out in front of the Fed to protect the pound—so presumably would go higher than 0.75%. Really could go either way though, so it’s safest to hew to 50%. (50%)

Interestingly, no one who thought it was likely left a comment!

Booster forecasts, scored

In September Nonrival asked:

How likely is it that the US administers more than 20 million doses of Covid vaccine in September?

It's time to see what happened and how your forecasts turned out.

Tens of thousands of American lives are at stake with the rollout of bivalent boosters, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund. But progress has been slow. The Biden administration has purchased 171 million doses, and some 200 million Americans are eligible.

So how many Covid vaccine doses were administered in September (bivalent plus original vaccine)? 8.8 million, per Our World In Data. At that pace, well under half of eligible Americans will get the bivalent booster by end of year.

A chart of Covid vaccine doses administered in the US by month. September was relatively low at 8.8M.

And it looks like the daily number of doses may have already peaked:

Covid vaccine doses delivered in the US rose in Sept. but have started to fall again

Scoring your forecast

The average of reader forecasts for this question was 24%, or about a one-in-four chance of hitting 20 million doses. Since the US didn't hit 20 million doses, lower forecasts score better.

(You didn't make a prediction that week or else you'd see your personalized forecasting results here.)

To revisit some of the reasoning readers gave at the time, click here.
"It's a travesty." The Washington Post says just 4% of eligible Americans have gotten the bivalent booster as of Oct. 7
Vaccine boosters delivered per 100 people, by country

Recession watch

Where are we on the chances of a US recession? Here are a few different forecasts:

Coming up

Next week, Nonrival will be back with a new forecast for readers to make. The plan for now is to alternate between new forecast weeks and comparison and scoring weeks.

Nonrival