Paul Samuelson, one of the very first winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, had little faith in the predictive powers of the stock market. In the 1960s, the professor jokingly noted that “Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions”. Yet when it comes to forecasting a slump, the profession which Mr Samuelson helped to found has no better record than stockpickers. Not only did the majority of economists fail to foresee the 2008 financial crisis. Once the downturn hit, most forecasters predicted substantially higher growth rates than those which were actually realised.
諾貝兒經濟學獎的早期得主之一保羅•塞繆爾森(Paul Samuelson)不怎麼相信股票市場的預測能力。20世紀60年代，這位教授開玩笑地指出，「華爾街指數預測到了最近五次衰退中的九次」。不過，若論及預測衰退的成功率，塞繆爾森幫助建立的這個行當的成績也沒比選股師好到哪兒去。大多數經濟學家不僅沒能預見到2008年的金融危機，而且在衰退來臨之時，大多數人預測的成長率還比實際結果高出不少。