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Survey Measures of Expected U.S. Inflation

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Author Info
Lloyd B. Thomas Jr.
Abstract

The forecasting performance of widely accessible surveys of expected inflation are evaluated against naive and financial market benchmark forecasts. In the period of rising inflation (1960-80), the Michigan household consensus forecasts exhibited smaller errors than the Livingston Survey of economists and the benchmark forecasts. Unlike Livingston, the Michigan forecasts were unbiased. Since 1980, Livingston forecasts have been more accurate than Michigan, though unbiasedness is rejected in both cases. SPF forecasts, available since 1981, have been slightly superior to Livingston. In forecasting inflation, respondents generally failed to take account of cyclical conditions, and strong-form rationality is not supported.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Volume (Year): 13 (1999)
Issue (Month): 4 (Fall)
Pages: 125-144
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Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:13:y:1999:i:4:p:125-144

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Lovell, Michael C, 1986. "Tests of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 110-24, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Dean Croushore, 1996. "Inflation forecasts: how good are they?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue May, pages 15-25. [Downloadable!]
  3. David Laster & Paul Bennett & In Sun Geoum, 1999. "Rational Bias In Macroeconomic Forecasts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(1), pages 293-318, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Gramlich, Edward M, 1983. "Models of Inflation Expectations Formation: A Comparison of Household and Economist Forecasts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 15(2), pages 155-73, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Rich, Robert W, 1989. "Testing the Rationality of Inflation Forecasts from Survey Data: Another Look at the SRC Expected Price Change Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(4), pages 682-86, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Herb Taylor, 1992. "The Livingston Surveys: a history of hopes and fears," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Jan, pages 15-27. [Downloadable!]
  7. Hafer, R W & Hein, Scott E, 1985. "On the Accuracy of Time-Series, Interest Rate, and Survey Forecasts of Inflation," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 377-98, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Dean Croushore, 1997. "The Livingston Survey: still useful after all these years," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Mar, pages 15-27. [Downloadable!]
  9. Fama, Eugene F. & Gibbons, Michael R., 1984. "A comparison of inflation forecasts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 327-348, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. John A. Carlson, 1977. "A Study of Price Forecasts," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 6, number 1, pages 33-63 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  11. Ehrbeck, Tilman & Waldmann, Robert, 1996. "Why Are Professional Forecasters Biased? Agency versus Behavioral Explanations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 21-40, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Fama, Eugene F, 1975. "Short-Term Interest Rates as Predictors of Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(3), pages 269-82, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Andolfatto, David & Scott Hendry & Kevin Moran, 2002. "Inflation Expectations and Learning about Monetary Policy," Working Papers 02-30, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Robert Rich & Joseph Tracy, 2003. "Modeling uncertainty: predictive accuracy as a proxy for predictive confidence," Staff Reports 161, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
  3. Michael T. Kiley, 2008. "Monetary policy actions and long-run inflation expectations," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-03, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  4. Gregor W. Smith & James Yetman, 2007. "The Curse of Irving Fisher (Professional Forecasters' Version)," Working Papers 1144, Queen's University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Reis, Ricardo & Wolfers, Justin, 2003. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," Research Papers 1807, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Fabio Canova & Luca Gambetti, 2007. "Do expectations matter? The Great Moderation revisited," Economics Working Papers 1084, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2009. [Downloadable!]
  7. Duffy, David & Lunn, Peter D., 2009. "The Misperception of Inflation by Irish Consumers," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 40(2), pages 139–163. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Söderlind, Paul, 2000. "Inflation Forecast Uncertainty," CEPR Discussion Papers 2499, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Troy Matheson, 2007. "An analysis of the informational content of New Zealand data releases: the importance of business opinion surveys," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series DP2007/13, Reserve Bank of New Zealand. [Downloadable!]
  10. Carl S Bonham & Richard H Cohen, 2000. "Testing the Rational Expectations Hypothesis using Survey Data," Working Papers 200007, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  11. Dean Croushore, 2006. "An evaluation of inflation forecasts from surveys using real-time data," Working Papers 06-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
  12. Gregor W. Smith, 2007. "Pooling Forecasts in Linear Rational Expectations Models," Working Papers 1129, Queen's University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2006. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-15, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Dong Fu, 2007. "Inflation expectations, real interest rate and risk premiums -- evidence from bond market and consumer survey data," Working Papers 0705, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. [Downloadable!]
  15. Kozo Ueda, 2009. "Determinants of Households' Inflation Expectations," IMES Discussion Paper Series 09-E-08, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan. [Downloadable!]
  16. David Andolfatto & Scott Hendry & Kevin Moran, 2005. "Are Inflation Expectations Rational?," Macroeconomics 0501002, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  17. Wilbert van der Klaauw & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Giorgio Topa & Simon Potter & Michael Bryan, 2008. "Rethinking the measurement of household inflation expectations: preliminary findings," Staff Reports 359, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
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