IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v32y2016i2p313-323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting the relative forecast performances of Fed staff and private forecasters: A dynamic approach

Author

Listed:
  • El-Shagi, Makram
  • Giesen, Sebastian
  • Jung, Alexander

Abstract

This paper aims to extend the findings of Romer and Romer (2000) to a setup where the time variation of (relative) forecast performances is addressed in much greater detail. We show that the relative forecast performances of Fed staff and private forecasters are not stable in the presence of large macroeconomic shocks such as the Great Moderation and the oil price shocks of the 1970s. Furthermore, we show that the predictive ability of the staff outperforms that of private forecasters in the presence of specific factors, such as an increased uncertainty in the economy and the staff’s better knowledge of the Fed’s future interest rate.

Suggested Citation

  • El-Shagi, Makram & Giesen, Sebastian & Jung, Alexander, 2016. "Revisiting the relative forecast performances of Fed staff and private forecasters: A dynamic approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 313-323.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:32:y:2016:i:2:p:313-323
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2015.05.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207015001065
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2015.05.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evans, Martin D D & Lewis, Karen K, 1995. "Do Expected Shifts in Inflation Affect Estimates of the Long-Run Fisher Relation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 225-253, March.
    2. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    3. Rossi, Barbara, 2005. "Optimal Tests For Nested Model Selection With Underlying Parameter Instability," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(5), pages 962-990, October.
    4. Claus Brand & Daniel Buncic & Jarkko Turunen, 2010. "The Impact of ECB Monetary Policy Decisions and Communication on the Yield Curve," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1266-1298, December.
    5. A. Jung, 2013. "Policymakers’ Interest Rate Preferences: Recent Evidence for Three Monetary Policy Committees," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(3), pages 150-197, September.
    6. Peek, Joe & Rosengren, Eric S. & Tootell, Geoffrey M. B., 2003. "Does the federal reserve possess an exploitable informational advantage?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 817-839, May.
    7. Christopher A. Sims, 2002. "The Role of Models and Probabilities in the Monetary Policy Process," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(2), pages 1-62.
    8. Martin Ellison & Thomas J. Sargent, 2012. "A Defense Of The Fomc," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1047-1065, November.
    9. Gavin, William T. & Mandal, Rachel J., 2003. "Evaluating FOMC forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 655-667.
    10. Andrews, Donald W. K. & Lee, Inpyo & Ploberger, Werner, 1996. "Optimal changepoint tests for normal linear regression," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 9-38, January.
    11. Blattner, Tobias Sebastian & Catenaro, Marco & Ehrmann, Michael & Strauch, Rolf & Turunen, Jarkko, 2008. "The predictability of monetary policy," Occasional Paper Series 83, European Central Bank.
    12. Antonello D'Agostino & Karl Whelan, 2008. "Federal Reserve Information During the Great Moderation," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 609-620, 04-05.
    13. Marvin Goodfriend, 1997. "Monetary policy comes of age: a 20th century odyssey," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Win, pages 1-22.
    14. Michael Woodford, 2005. "Central bank communication and policy effectiveness," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 399-474.
    15. Peter Tulip, 2009. "Has the Economy Become More Predictable? Changes in Greenbook Forecast Accuracy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(6), pages 1217-1231, September.
    16. Keane, Michael P & Runkle, David E, 1990. "Testing the Rationality of Price Forecasts: New Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 714-735, September.
    17. Nordhaus, William D, 1987. "Forecasting Efficiency: Concepts and Applications," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 667-674, November.
    18. Maddala, G S & Wu, Shaowen, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 631-652, Special I.
    19. Tillmann, Peter, 2011. "Strategic forecasting on the FOMC," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 547-553, September.
    20. David H. Romer & Christina D. Romer, 2000. "Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 429-457, June.
    21. Holden, K & Peel, D A, 1990. "On Testing for Unbiasedness and Efficiency of Forecasts," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 58(2), pages 120-127, June.
    22. Kenny, Geoff & Morgan, Julian, 2011. "Some lessons from the financial crisis for the economic analysis," Occasional Paper Series 130, European Central Bank.
    23. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2008. "The FOMC versus the Staff: Where Can Monetary Policymakers Add Value?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 230-235, May.
    24. Swanson, Eric T., 2006. "Have Increases in Federal Reserve Transparency Improved Private Sector Interest Rate Forecasts?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 791-819, April.
    25. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2010. "Forecast comparisons in unstable environments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 595-620.
    26. Gamber, Edward N. & Smith, Julie K., 2009. "Are the Fed's inflation forecasts still superior to the private sector's?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 240-251, June.
    27. Lange, Joe & Sack, Brian & Whitesell, William, 2003. "Anticipations of Monetary Policy in Financial Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(6), pages 889-909, December.
    28. Sheng, Xuguang (Simon), 2015. "Evaluating the economic forecasts of FOMC members," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 165-175.
    29. Michael W. McCracken, 2010. "Disagreement at the FOMC: the dissenting votes are just part of the story," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Oct, pages 10-16.
    30. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    31. Kenny, Geoff & Morgan, Julian, 2011. "Some lessons from the financial crisis for the economic analysis," Occasional Paper Series 130, European Central Bank.
    32. Ricardo Nunes, 2013. "Do central banks’ forecasts take into account public opinion and views?," International Finance Discussion Papers 1080, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    33. David L. Reifschneider & Peter Tulip, 2007. "Gauging the uncertainty of the economic outlook from historical forecasting errors," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-60, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    34. Tobias Blattner & Marco Catenaro & Michael Ehrmann & Rolf Strauch & Jarkko Turunen, 2008. "The predictability of monetary policy," Occasional Paper Series 83, European Central Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Benchimol, Jonathan & El-Shagi, Makram & Saadon, Yossi, 2022. "Do expert experience and characteristics affect inflation forecasts?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 205-226.
    2. Benchimol, Jonathan & El-Shagi, Makram, 2020. "Forecast performance in times of terrorism," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 386-402.
    3. G. Kontogeorgos & K. Lambrias, 2022. "Evaluating the Eurosystem/ECB staff macroeconomic projections: The first 20 years," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(2), pages 213-229, March.
    4. El-Shagi, Makram, 2019. "Rationality tests in the presence of instabilities in finite samples," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 242-246.
    5. Eleonora Granziera & Pirkka Jalasjoki & Maritta Paloviita, 2021. "The Bias and Efficiency of the ECB Inflation Projections: a State Dependent Analysis," Working Paper 2021/1, Norges Bank.
    6. Håvard Hungnes, 2020. "Equal predictability test for multi-step-ahead system forecasts invariant to linear transformations," Discussion Papers 931, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    7. Granziera, Eleonora & Jalasjoki, Pirkka & Paloviita, Maritta, 2021. "The bias and efficiency of the ECB inflation projections: A state dependent analysis," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 7/2021, Bank of Finland.
    8. Kontogeorgos, Georgios & Lambrias, Kyriacos, 2019. "An analysis of the Eurosystem/ECB projections," Working Paper Series 2291, European Central Bank.
    9. Deschamps, Bruno & Ioannidis, Christos & Ka, Kook, 2020. "High-frequency credit spread information and macroeconomic forecast revision," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 358-372.
    10. Joscha Beckmann & Ansgar Belke & Irina Dubova, 2022. "What drives updates of inflation expectations? A Bayesian VAR analysis for the G‐7 countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(9), pages 2748-2765, September.
    11. Granziera, Eleonora & Jalasjoki, Pirkka & Paloviita, Maritta, 2021. "The bias and efficiency of the ECB inflation projections: a State dependent analysis," Research Discussion Papers 7/2021, Bank of Finland.
    12. Håvard Hungnes, 2020. "Predicting the exchange rate path. The importance of using up-to-date observations in the forecasts," Discussion Papers 934, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2021_007 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Bespalova, Olga, 2020. "GDP forecasts: Informational asymmetry of the SPF and FOMC minutes," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1531-1540.
    15. Lillian R. Gaeto & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "Measuring the Accuracy of Federal Reserve Forecasts," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 960-984, January.
    16. de Mendonça, Helder Ferreira & Simão Filho, José & Abreu, Vanessa Castro, 2023. "Central bank’s forecasts and lack of transparency: An assessment of the effect on private expectations in a large emerging economy," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(2).
    17. Håvard Hungnes, 2018. "Encompassing tests for evaluating multi-step system forecasts invariant to linear transformations," Discussion Papers 871, Statistics Norway, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. El-Shagi, Makram & Giesen, Sebastian & Jung, Alexander, 2012. "Does Central Bank Staff Beat Private Forecasters?," IWH Discussion Papers 5/2012, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    2. Jung, Alexander & El-Shagi, Makram & Giesen, Sebastian, 2014. "Does the federal reserve staff still beat private forecasters?," Working Paper Series 1635, European Central Bank.
    3. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Revisiting the Greenbook’s relative forecasting performance," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 151-179.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/35kgubh40v9gfpnuruelqjnptb is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Carola Conces Binder & Rodrigo Sekkel, 2023. "Central Bank Forecasting: A Survey," Staff Working Papers 23-18, Bank of Canada.
    6. Messina, Jeffrey D. & Sinclair, Tara M. & Stekler, Herman, 2015. "What can we learn from revisions to the Greenbook forecasts?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 54-62.
    7. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3pot7260lh88lrfhrhvs85lh2f is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3pot7260lh88lrfhrhvs85lh2f is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary Policy, Imperfect Information and the Expectations Channel," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1u, Sciences Po.
    11. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Do Central Bank Forecasts Influence Private Agents? Forecasting Performance versus Signals," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 771-789, June.
    12. Henning Fischer & Marta García-Bárzana & Peter Tillmann & Peter Winker, 2014. "Evaluating FOMC forecast ranges: an interval data approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 365-388, August.
    13. Stekler, Herman & Symington, Hilary, 2016. "Evaluating qualitative forecasts: The FOMC minutes, 2006–2010," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 559-570.
    14. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lillian R. Gaeto & Sandeep Mazumder, 2019. "Measuring the Accuracy of Federal Reserve Forecasts," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(3), pages 960-984, January.
    16. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2021. "The value added of the Bank of Japan's range forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(5), pages 817-833, August.
    18. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary policy, imperfect information and the expectations channel [Politique monétaire,information imparfaite et canal des anticipations]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-04095385, HAL.
    19. Pao‐Lin Tien & Tara M. Sinclair & Edward N. Gamber, 2021. "Do Fed Forecast Errors Matter?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 686-712, June.
    20. Guido Schultefrankenfeld, 2020. "Appropriate monetary policy and forecast disagreement at the FOMC," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 223-255, January.
    21. El-Shagi, Makram, 2011. "Inflation expectations: Does the market beat econometric forecasts?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 298-319.
    22. Gamber, Edward N. & Liebner, Jeffrey P. & Smith, Julie K., 2015. "The distribution of inflation forecast errors," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 47-64.
    23. Sheng, Xuguang (Simon), 2015. "Evaluating the economic forecasts of FOMC members," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 165-175.
    24. Ericsson, Neil R., 2016. "Eliciting GDP forecasts from the FOMC’s minutes around the financial crisis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 571-583.
    25. Matei Demetrescu & Christoph Hanck & Robinson Kruse‐Becher, 2022. "Robust inference under time‐varying volatility: A real‐time evaluation of professional forecasters," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 1010-1030, August.
    26. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Paul Hubert, 2015. "The Influence and Policy Signalling Role of FOMC Forecasts," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 77(5), pages 655-680, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:32:y:2016:i:2:p:313-323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.