IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jebusi/v63y2011i4p290-305.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Federal Reserve and private forecasts of growth in investment

Author

Listed:
  • Baghestani, Hamid

Abstract

This study examines the Federal Reserve and private forecasts of growth in both business and residential investment for 1983-2004 and reaches four main conclusions: First, in support of the asymmetric information hypothesis, the shorter (longer) horizon Federal Reserve forecasts of growth in business (residential) investment contain useful predictive information beyond that included in private forecasts. Second, the Federal Reserve forecasts are all biased. The same is true for the private forecasts of growth in residential (but not entirely for the forecasts of growth in business) investment. Third, the private forecasts overall do better than those of the Federal Reserve in outperforming the univariate forecasts. Fourth, the Federal Reserve and private forecasts of growth in business (residential) investment, while directionally accurate, imply symmetric (asymmetric) loss. We conclude this study by discussing the usefulness of these forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Baghestani, Hamid, 2011. "Federal Reserve and private forecasts of growth in investment," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 290-305, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jebusi:v:63:y:2011:i:4:p:290-305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148619510000627
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Chirinko, Robert S, 1993. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1875-1911, December.
    2. Jansen, Dennis W. & Kishan, Ruby Pandey, 1996. "An evaluation of federal reserve forecasting," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 89-109.
    3. Robert S. Chirinko, 1992. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: A Critical survey of Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Working Papers 9213, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    4. Henriksson, Roy D & Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. II. Statistical Procedures for Evaluating Forecasting Skills," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 513-533, October.
    5. Greer, Mark, 2003. "Directional accuracy tests of long-term interest rate forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 291-298.
    6. Capistrán, Carlos, 2008. "Bias in Federal Reserve inflation forecasts: Is the Federal Reserve irrational or just cautious?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1415-1427, November.
    7. Baghestani, Hamid, 2008. "Federal Reserve versus private information: Who is the best unemployment rate predictor," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 101-110.
    8. 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.
    9. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    10. Ash, J. C. K. & Smyth, D. J. & Heravi, S. M., 1998. "Are OECD forecasts rational and useful?: a directional analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 381-391, September.
    11. Schnader, M H & Stekler, H O, 1990. "Evaluating Predictions of Change," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 99-107, January.
    12. Richard K. Green, 1997. "Follow the Leader: How Changes in Residential and Non‐residential Investment Predict Changes in GDP," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 253-270, June.
    13. William T. Gavin & Rachel J. Mandal, 2001. "Forecasting inflation and growth: do private forecasts match those of policymakers?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 83(May), pages 11-20.
    14. Timothy Bisping & Hilde Patron, 2008. "Residential Investment and Business Cycles in an Open Economy: A Generalized Impulse Response Approach," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 33-49, July.
    15. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    16. Joutz, Fred & Stekler, H. O., 2000. "An evaluation of the predictions of the Federal Reserve," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 17-38.
    17. N. Edward Coulson & Myeong-Soo Kim, 2000. "Residential Investment, Non-residential Investment and GDP," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 233-247.
    18. 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.
    19. Gavin, William T. & Mandal, Rachel J., 2003. "Evaluating FOMC forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 655-667.
    20. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    21. Richard S. Brauman & Richard W. Kopcke, 2001. "The performance of traditional macroeconomic models of businesses' investment spending," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 3-39.
    22. 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.
    23. Dean Croushore, 1993. "Introducing: the survey of professional forecasters," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Nov, pages 3-15.
    24. Harvey, David & Leybourne, Stephen & Newbold, Paul, 1997. "Testing the equality of prediction mean squared errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 281-291, June.
    25. Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. I. An Equilibrium Theory of Value for Market Forecasts," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 363-406, July.
    26. Leitch, Gordon & Tanner, J Ernest, 1991. "Economic Forecast Evaluation: Profits versus the Conventional Error Measures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 580-590, June.
    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. Goodness C. Aye & Stephen M. Miller & Rangan Gupta & Mehmet Balcilar, 2016. "Forecasting US real private residential fixed investment using a large number of predictors," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1557-1580, December.
    2. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-465 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Chang, Andrew C. & Hanson, Tyler J., 2016. "The accuracy of forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 23-43.
    4. Andrew C. Chang & Tyler J. Hanson, 2015. "The Accuracy of Forecasts Prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-62, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Alain Kabundi & Eliphas Ndou & Nombulelo Gumata, 2013. "Important Channels of Transmission Monetary Policy Shock in South Africa," Working Papers 375, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    6. Kézdi, Gábor & Mátyás, László & Balázsi, László & Divényi, János Károly, 2014. "A közgazdasági adatforradalom és a panelökonometria [The revolution in economic data and panel econometrics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1319-1340.
    7. Baghestani, Hamid, 2012. "Are professional forecasts of growth in US business investment rational?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 132-135.
    8. Naik, Prasad A., 2015. "Marketing Dynamics: A Primer on Estimation and Control," Foundations and Trends(R) in Marketing, now publishers, vol. 9(3), pages 175-266, December.
    9. Nicholas Apergis & Ghassen El Montasser & Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere & Ahdi N. Ajmi & Rangan Gupta, 2014. "Dutch Disease Effect of Oil Rents on Agriculture Value Added in MENA Countries," Working Papers 201408, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    10. Lunsford, Kurt G., 2015. "Forecasting residential investment in the United States," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 276-285.
    11. Baghestani, Hamid & AbuAl-Foul, Bassam M., 2017. "Comparing Federal Reserve, Blue Chip, and time series forecasts of US output growth," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 47-56.
    12. Hamid Baghestani, 2013. "Evaluating Federal Reserve predictions of growth in consumer spending," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(13), pages 1637-1646, May.

    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. Baghestani, Hamid & AbuAl-Foul, Bassam M., 2017. "Comparing Federal Reserve, Blue Chip, and time series forecasts of US output growth," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 47-56.
    2. Hamid Baghestani, 2011. "A directional analysis of Federal Reserve predictions of growth in unit labor costs and productivity," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 303-311.
    3. Baghestani, Hamid & Khallaf, Ashraf, 2012. "Predictions of growth in U.S. corporate profits: Asymmetric vs. symmetric loss," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 222-229.
    4. Bespalova, Olga, 2018. "Forecast Evaluation in Macroeconomics and International Finance. Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA," MPRA Paper 117706, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Hamid Baghestani, 2010. "Evaluating Blue Chip forecasts of the trade-weighted dollar exchange rate," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(24), pages 1879-1889.
    6. Ullrich Heilemann & Herman Stekler, 2010. "Perspectives on Evaluating Macroeconomic Forecasts," Working Papers 2010-002, The George Washington University, Department of Economics, H. O. Stekler Research Program on Forecasting.
    7. Capistrán, Carlos, 2008. "Bias in Federal Reserve inflation forecasts: Is the Federal Reserve irrational or just cautious?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1415-1427, November.
    8. Oliver Blaskowitz & Helmut Herwartz, 2008. "Testing directional forecast value in the presence of serial correlation," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-073, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    9. Baghestani, Hamid, 2008. "Federal Reserve versus private information: Who is the best unemployment rate predictor," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 101-110.
    10. Fred Joutz & Michael P. Clements & Herman O. Stekler, 2007. "An evaluation of the forecasts of the federal reserve: a pooled approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 121-136.
    11. Gavin, William T. & Mandal, Rachel J., 2003. "Evaluating FOMC forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 655-667.
    12. Hamid Baghestani, 2013. "Evaluating Federal Reserve predictions of growth in consumer spending," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(13), pages 1637-1646, May.
    13. Baghestani, Hamid & Toledo, Hugo, 2017. "Do analysts' forecasts of term spread differential help predict directional change in exchange rates?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 62-69.
    14. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Revisiting the Greenbook’s relative forecasting performance," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 151-179.
    15. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Directional analysis of fiscal sustainability: Revisiting Domar's debt sustainability condition," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 189-201.
    16. Hamid Baghestani, 2009. "A Comparison of U.S. Housing Starts Forecasts," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2525-2530.
    17. Greer, Mark, 2003. "Directional accuracy tests of long-term interest rate forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 291-298.
    18. 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.
    19. Hamid Baghestani, 2017. "Do US consumer survey data help beat the random walk in forecasting mortgage rates?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1343017-134, January.
    20. 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.

    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:jebusi:v:63:y:2011:i:4:p:290-305. 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: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-economics-and-business .

    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.