Economists Predict Growth In Mass. This Year — Honest!

Forecasting the economy is a thankless job. Because, basically, you’re always wrong.

“It’s a matter of how wrong,” said UMass Boston economist Alan Clayton-Matthews. “These recessions all entail surprises, and this one was no exception.”

Twice a year, Clayton-Matthews gets together with other experts from around the region to say where the economy is headed. Last fall, he was pretty wrong. He thought the Commonwealth economy would be picking back up again by now. And he was not alone.

“As late as December 2008, the consensus among economists was that the economy would be growing a slight bit in the first quarter of 2009,” he said. “That’s how off economists were.”