For instance, the International Monetary Fund is the most professional body in preparing forecasts of the global economy, and even the forecasts it publishes are subject to frequent revisions of significant scope. At the beginning of 2016, the IMF forecast that world growth would increase by 4 percent. In October, the revised forecast estimated trade at just 2.3 percent.
It is important to emphasize that world trade is the most important global economic variable from the standpoint of the Israeli economy. The economy is characterized by what economists call a serial correlation. For instance, the determination of annual GDP is not disconnected from that of the previous year.