Predictions

How Did My 2016 Predictions Stack Up?

Last January I made some predictions for 2016.  In this post, I will see how they stacked up. Crossed out predictions indicate that I was wrong, italicized predictions indicate that I couldn’t determine whether I was right or wrong.

World Events

  1. Canadian year-over-year CPI growth will be higher than it was in December 2015: 90% (Apparently not. It fell from 1.6 to 1.2.)
  2. Canadian year-over-year CPI growth will be at least 2.0%: 60% (Nope. See 1.)
  3. American year-over-year CPI growth will stay below 1.0%: 60% (No, latest number was 1.7%.)
  4. American year-over-year CPI growth will stay below 2.0%: 80% (Yes, see 3.)
  5. Unemployment in the US will be lower than it was in December 2015: 60% (Yes, it fell from 5.0 to 4.7%.)
  6. Unemployment in Canada will be lower than it was in December 2015: 60% (Yes, it’s down 2.8%.)
  7. Canadian year-over-year real GDP growth will be lower in 2016 than in 2015: 70% (Latest numbers show an increase.)
  8. American year-over-year real GDP growth will be lower in 2016 than in 2015: 60% (Latest growth is 1.7% compared to 1.9 in the last quarter of 2015.)
  9. Iranian year-over-year real GDP growth will be higher in 2016 than it was in 2015: 80% (Data not available.)
  10. The S&P 500 will end 2016 lower than it started: 60% (note that I am making this prediction on January 26th, and it has already fallen since January 1st) (Even with the election of The Donald, the S&P refused to crash.)
  11. The price of crude oil will be above $35 USD at the end of 2016: 70% (Yes.)
  12. The price of crude oil will be above $30 USD at the end of 2016: 90% (Yes.)
  13. The price of Bitcoin will be above $400 USD at the end of 2016: 70% (Yes.)
  14. The Canadian Federal Government will not decriminalize marijuana: 90% (Yes, but they’re working on it.)
  15. The US Federal Government will not decriminalize marijuana: 99% (Yes.)
  16. At least one more US State will decriminalize adult use and cultivation of marijuana: 60% (The ballot measures passed in multiple states. Not sure if they’ve been implemented yet, but I’ll count this as a yes.)
  17. Donald Trump will not win the Republican nomination: 60%
  18. Conditional on Trump winning the nomination, voter turnout as a percentage of the voting age population will be higher than it was in the 2012 presidential election: 90%
  19. Conditional on Trump losing the nomination, voter turnout as a percentage of the voting age population will be lower than it was in the 2012 presidential election: 60%
  20. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee: 80%
  21. Hillary Clinton will be elected President: 60%
  22. ISIS will hold less territory than it did at the beginning of 2016: 90% (Looks like they lost ground. See this handy interactive map.)
  23. ISIS will lose Raqqa: 60%
  24. The Force Awakens’ worldwide gross will exceed that of Titanic: 80% (Nope.)
  25. The Force Awakens’ worldwide gross will not exceed that of Avatar: 80% (Yep.)
  26. No 2016 movie will gross more than The Force Awakens: 90% (Yep.)
  27. Leonardo DiCaprio will finally win an Oscar: 90% (Yep.)

Personal

  1. I will release more episodes of Economics Detective Radio than I did in 2015: 70%
  2. Economics Detective Radio will have more total downloads in 2016 than it did in 2015: 70%
  3. I will present at at least one academic conference: 90%
  4. I will not present at two academic conferences: 60%
  5. I will get married: 99%
  6. There will be more than 60 guests at my wedding: 60%
  7. I will submit at least one academic paper to a journal: 80% (I’m this close to finishing, I swear!)
  8. I will submit at least two academic papers to journals (not different drafts of the same paper): 60%
  9. I will upload at least four YouTube videos in 2016: 60%
  10. I will meet a Nobel Laureate I haven’t met before (a handshake or brief conversation counts as meeting, merely attending a lecture does not): 60%

So in my predictions of world events, I was on the wrong side of maybe 10 out of 27 times. In my predictions of things in my personal life, I was on the wrong side of maybe 3/10 times.

That doesn’t tell us whether my predictions were well calibrated or not, so here’s a table of the predictions against their actual frequency:

Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com

I conclude from this that I am somewhat overconfident in my predictions. I’ll try to do better in the future.