Your November 16 report "IMF Lowers Economic Forecasts" contained some important inaccuracies.

First, while the global situation is undoubtedly serious, the IMF is not "acknowledging that the global economy is effectively in recession". There is no broadly accepted definition of a global recession, but world growth of 2.4 percent, as projected by the IMF, would be considerably higher than that experienced in the three most serious downturns in the last thirty years, in which global growth fell below 2 percent. And, also contrary to what your reporter states, it would be well above the growth rate needed to keep pace with global population growth, which is presently running at 1- 1½ percent.

Second, it is incorrect to characterize the IMF's forecasts as "lagging behind" those of private economists. Economic forecasting is inevitably a highly imprecise science, and IMF staff have certainly made their share of forecasting errors, but independent studies have shown that our projections have in general been just as good as those of the private sector. Your correspondent refers to one forecast for U.S. growth next year that is below ours, but he should have looked more widely: in fact, if he had looked at the consensus forecast of private analysts, coincidentally published the same day, he would have seen that it is identical to our projection.