Local Economy: The Citizen Challenge
Editor's Note: The entry period for this contest has expired. No submissions received after 11:59 p.m. ET on Feb. 12, 2006, will be considered.
How do you stack up against the experts? The Post asked 26 executives, economists and analysts to predict the performance of the Washington area economy in 2006. Offer your own fearless prognostications below for the region’s unemployment, home prices, economic growth and other measures. The most accurate overall entry submitted over the next week will be featured as the “people’s winner” in next year’s Local Economy Challenge in The Washington Post.
The entrants will be ranked from most to least accurate based on how close each prediction for a given data point is to the actual outcome. Each entrant’s accuracy ranking on each data point will then be averaged to determine who was most accurate overall.
An editor will contact you to verify your e-mail address and identity; only valid entries (one per contestant) will be eligible for contest consideration.
No purchase is necessary to enter. E-mail submissions must be received between 10:01 p.m. ET on Feb. 5, 2006, and 11:59 p.m. ET. on Feb. 12, 2006. Employees and their immediate families, including household members, of The Washington Post co. are not eligible.
The fields below have been pre-loaded with the median values of all 26 experts' predictions for 2006. To change the data, simply type your own numbers. The "Calculate" button will display your optimism score. To submit that data for the contest, enter the required information at the bottom of the form and click "E-Mail Your Guesses."
The "Compare" link next to each entry blank will display actual statistics for 2004 and 2005, as well as the range of the predictions for 2006.