Every IMF forecast for Mexico since 1990, beside what happened
Twice a year the International Monetary Fund publishes its forecast for every member's growth and inflation. It keeps every one of them, and anyone can read them. Here is Mexico's record: what was expected a year ahead, what was expected in April of the same year, and what the numbers said once the year was over. The point is the pattern, not a score against anyone.
Error = year-ahead forecast minus first published result. Year-ahead means the October edition of the year before.
Growth
The year-ahead forecast was higher than the first result in 19 of 34 years, with an average bias of +1.3 points. The largest misses come in the shock years: 1995, 2001, 2009 and 2020. Even in April of the same year, the forecast ran high in 20 of 34 years.
↔ Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
↔ Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook historical forecasts database (updated 22 Apr 2025) · World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0)
Data table
| Year | Year-ahead | April | First result | Latest | Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 4.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | +0.0 |
| 1992 | 5.4 | 4.0 | 2.7 | 3.6 | +2.7 |
| 1993 | 4.9 | 3.0 | 0.4 | 2.9 | +4.5 |
| 1994 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 4.4 | +0.0 |
| 1995 | 4.0 | -2.0 | -6.9 | -5.9 | +10.9 |
| 1996 | 4.0 | 3.0 | 5.1 | 6.2 | -1.1 |
| 1997 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 7.0 | 7.2 | -2.0 |
| 1998 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 6.2 | -0.1 |
| 1999 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 3.7 | 2.8 | -0.7 |
| 2000 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 6.9 | 5.0 | -1.9 |
| 2001 | 4.8 | 3.5 | -0.3 | -0.5 | +5.1 |
| 2002 | 4.0 | 1.7 | 0.9 | -0.2 | +3.1 |
| 2003 | 4.0 | 2.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 | +2.7 |
| 2004 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 4.4 | 3.6 | -0.9 |
| 2005 | 3.2 | 3.7 | 3.0 | 2.1 | +0.3 |
| 2006 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4.8 | 4.8 | -1.3 |
| 2007 | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 2.1 | +0.2 |
| 2008 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 1.3 | 0.9 | +1.7 |
| 2009 | 1.8 | -3.7 | -6.5 | -6.3 | +8.3 |
| 2010 | 3.3 | 4.2 | 5.5 | 5.0 | -2.3 |
| 2011 | 3.9 | 4.6 | 4.0 | 3.4 | -0.1 |
| 2012 | 3.6 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 3.6 | -0.3 |
| 2013 | 3.5 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 0.9 | +2.4 |
| 2014 | 3.0 | 3.0 | 2.1 | 2.5 | +0.9 |
| 2015 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 2.7 | +1.0 |
| 2016 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 2.3 | 1.8 | +0.5 |
| 2017 | 2.3 | 1.7 | 2.0 | 1.9 | +0.3 |
| 2018 | 1.9 | 2.3 | 2.0 | 2.0 | -0.1 |
| 2019 | 2.5 | 1.6 | -0.1 | -0.4 | +2.7 |
| 2020 | 1.3 | -6.6 | -8.2 | -8.4 | +9.5 |
| 2021 | 3.5 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 6.0 | -1.3 |
| 2022 | 4.0 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 3.7 | +0.9 |
| 2023 | 1.2 | 1.8 | 3.2 | 3.1 | -2.1 |
| 2024 | 2.1 | 2.4 | 1.5 | 1.4 | +0.7 |
Inflation
Inflation ran the other way: the year-ahead forecast was lower than the result in 25 of 34 years, with an average bias of -2.0 points, most of it from the 1995 to 1997 misses after the peso crisis. Since 2000 the bias is -0.6 points, with inflation above the forecast in 17 of 25 years.
↔ Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
↔ Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook historical forecasts database (updated 22 Apr 2025) · World Bank, World Development Indicators (updated 8 Oct 2026; CC BY 4.0)
Data table
| Year | Year-ahead | April | First result | Latest | Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | 18.9 | 18.9 | 22.7 | 22.7 | -3.8 |
| 1992 | 13.5 | 13.9 | 15.3 | 15.5 | -1.8 |
| 1993 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 9.8 | 9.8 | -1.8 |
| 1994 | 7.0 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | +0.0 |
| 1995 | 4.5 | 30.6 | 35.0 | 35.0 | -30.5 |
| 1996 | 27.8 | 28.9 | 34.1 | 34.4 | -6.3 |
| 1997 | 15.7 | 17.3 | 20.6 | 20.6 | -4.9 |
| 1998 | 13.7 | 13.4 | 16.7 | 15.9 | -3.0 |
| 1999 | 13.8 | 16.7 | 16.6 | 16.6 | -2.8 |
| 2000 | 11.2 | 10.1 | 9.5 | 9.5 | +1.7 |
| 2001 | 8.2 | 6.9 | 6.4 | 6.4 | +1.8 |
| 2002 | 4.8 | 4.3 | 5.0 | 5.0 | -0.3 |
| 2003 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 4.5 | -0.8 |
| 2004 | 3.4 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 4.7 | -1.3 |
| 2005 | 4.0 | 4.6 | 4.0 | 4.0 | +0.0 |
| 2006 | 3.6 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.6 | +0.0 |
| 2007 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.0 | -0.7 |
| 2008 | 4.2 | 3.8 | 5.1 | 5.1 | -0.9 |
| 2009 | 4.2 | 4.8 | 5.3 | 5.3 | -1.1 |
| 2010 | 3.5 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 4.2 | -0.7 |
| 2011 | 3.2 | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.4 | -0.2 |
| 2012 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 4.1 | 4.1 | -1.0 |
| 2013 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 3.8 | 3.8 | -0.3 |
| 2014 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | -1.1 |
| 2015 | 3.6 | 3.2 | 2.7 | 2.7 | +0.9 |
| 2016 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 2.8 | 2.8 | +0.2 |
| 2017 | 3.3 | 4.8 | 6.0 | 6.0 | -2.7 |
| 2018 | 3.8 | 4.4 | 4.9 | 4.9 | -1.1 |
| 2019 | 3.6 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 3.6 | +0.0 |
| 2020 | 3.1 | 2.7 | 3.4 | 3.4 | -0.3 |
| 2021 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 5.7 | 5.7 | -2.4 |
| 2022 | 3.8 | 6.8 | 7.9 | 7.9 | -4.1 |
| 2023 | 6.3 | 6.3 | 5.5 | 5.5 | +0.8 |
| 2024 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 4.7 | -0.9 |
How we compare
- Forecasts come from the IMF's historical forecasts file, which holds every World Economic Outlook since spring 1990 (our copy updated 22 April 2025, read 23 October 2026).
- Each forecast is scored against the first published result: the IMF's own figure for that year in its April edition of the following year. That is what was knowable at the time, before later revisions.
- The latest figure, from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (updated 8 October 2026), is shown as a second line, never in place of the first. INEGI's 2018 base year moved some history; the gap between the two lines shows it.
- Inflation is the yearly average of consumer prices, the IMF's own measure, matched with the same measure in the result.
- Year-ahead and same-year forecasts are never pooled. Values are as published, rounded to one decimal for display; the CSV files keep six.
- The April 2020 edition, published as the pandemic began, forecast only as far as 2021; nothing is filled in beyond what an edition published.
- A miss smaller than 0.05 points rounds to 0.0 on this page and is counted as neither too high nor too low. The errors, counts and averages are our own calculations from the IMF's numbers.
- Still to come: the OECD's projections, Banco de México's own forecast ranges and its survey of private economists, and the peso and interest-rate forecasts, which the IMF file does not carry.