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Economic Commentary

Weekly Economic Commentary

March 30, 2026 by Jeanette Garretty, Chief Economist

The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) has gained considerable attention recently with a forecast for US inflation in 2026 well above 4% as a result of escalating oil prices and other consequences of the Iranian war. This forecast was contained in an interim economic outlook formulated sometime after the start of the conflict and published on March 26. Receiving considerably less attention was the equally thought-provoking OECD projection that global economic growth for 2026 would be 2.9%, a forecast unchanged from the OECD forecast published in December 2025. Although the growth outlook would appear to signal a surprising lack of impact on economic activity from the war and its associated upward push on inflation, it apparently represents an approximate 1 percentage point downgrade in economic growth from what the OECD would have been intending  to report — the OECD having determined  that it had seriously underestimated in December 2025 the strength of the business sector of the “G20” developed economies. All this detail is provided to highlight (assuming the reader has stayed awake) several important points about economic forecasts at this moment in time. First, with the war now dragging into its second month, virtually every economic forecaster will feel compelled to generate an economic forecast. Second, it is not clear that economic forecasters know much more today than they did two weeks ago, with the key uncertainty continuing to be about the length of time that oil, gas, fertilizer and other key products will be blocked from transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Third, the rapidly proliferating economic forecasts often contain a wide variety of assumptions about both the war and the economy, and great care must be taken in attempting to compare and contrast various prognostications. Fourth, and finally, the economic forecasts, especially those purporting to give guidance for the whole year, inevitably will be revised, often and possibly substantially. Caveat emptor! 

Data to Watch 

  • US Retail Sales for February, released Tuesday, March 31 
  • US  S&P Global and Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Purchasing Managers Indices(PMI) for Manufacturing in March (look for detail on input prices) released Wednesday, April 1 
  • US NonFarm Payrolls and Unemployment Rate for March, released Friday, April 3 

Suggested Readings 

Disclosures

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