I look at the North Dakota total tax revenues over the 24 month biennium window for the current and past nine biennia. There are some seasonal patterns that come to light as well as some exceptional months for certain biennia (outliers?). I look at the accumulated total revenues over the biennia as well to look at the path of biennial fiscal revenues.
There are many moving pieces in the economy, but oil in North Dakota represents a clear economic and budget issue for the state right now. I provide a first pass here.
Clearly oil prices and the budget in North Dakota will be a topic going forward. Here is a start for the discussion.
I was a guest on the Jay Thomas Show on WDAY radio out of Fargo today. The guest host was Rob Port from the SayAnythingBlog, Forum Communications Op-Ed pages, TV appearances, and probably a bunch of stuff I am forgetting. He might be getting close to the title of “King of All North Dakota Media” at this point. The topic was forecasting. Yes I know. Friday afternoon in the summer and we were talking forecasting. I do not apologize for it, since I am pretty much always thinking about statistical models.
Continue reading Good forecasting is not about getting it right the first time