(Bickering for Better) Lawmakers’ disagreements over government spending—from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda—have at times seemed insurmountable. Concerns about inflation have played a central role in many of those disputes. Experienced forecasters recognize this as a battle of predictions. Proponents of more government spending predict legislation will help … Continued
An understanding of an event’s base rate is a critical component of smart decision-making Successful gamblers, like good forecasters, know how to translate hunches into numeric probabilities. For most people, however, this skill is not innate. It requires cultivation and practice. In Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, a best-selling book co-authored with Dan … Continued
Combining related forecasting questions into clusters can reveal bigger-picture insights for businesses and industries Forecasting is an essential part of business. Companies use historical data and economic trends to make informed estimates of future sales, profits and losses. Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOGL) rely on predictive algorithms to highlight specific products or search results for … Continued
Hubris erects a barrier to good forecasting. Unchecked, it could prove expensive. With SPACs all the rage, it’s important not to get too carried away by the rhetoric. Overconfidence can be expensive. This is true in geopolitics, public health or the stock market. From the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle to the slow response to … Continued
Superforecasters share three strategies for making accurate predictions Americans are more polarized than ever, and their split along two ideological extremes complicates a forecaster’s job. Polarization stresses feelings over facts, confounding the separation of signal from noise that’s essential to forecasting accuracy. Also, the forecaster’s own biases and preferences can be harder to recognize—and set … Continued
