IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea14/170642.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Usda And Private Analysts' Forecasts Of Ending Stocks: How Good Are They?

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao, Jinzhi
  • Lence, Sergio H.
  • Hart, Chad

Abstract

Forecasts of U.S. ending stocks for corn, soybean, and wheat issued by the USDA and private analysts are evaluated. The null hypothesis that USDA forecasts are unbiased cannot be rejected. The null hypothesis that private analysts' forecasts are unbiased forecasts of USDA forecasts cannot be rejected either. However, there is strong evidence that the forecasts issued by the USDA and private analysts are inefficient. Overall, the precision of the USDA forecasts and the private analysts' forecasts is highest for wheat and lowest for soybean.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao, Jinzhi & Lence, Sergio H. & Hart, Chad, 2014. "Usda And Private Analysts' Forecasts Of Ending Stocks: How Good Are They?," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170642, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea14:170642
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.170642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/170642/files/AAEA_paper_final%20-%20print.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.170642?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bonham, Carl S & Cohen, Richard H, 2001. "To Aggregate, Pool, or Neither: Testing the Rational-Expectations Hypothesis Using Survey Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(3), pages 278-291, July.
    2. 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.
    3. Scott H. Irwin & Mary E. Gerlow & Te‐Ru Liu, 1994. "The forecasting performance of livestock futures prices: A comparison to USDA expert predictions," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(7), pages 861-875, October.
    4. Isengildina-Massa, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L. & Gomez, Jennifer K., 2008. "The Impact of Situation and Outlook Information in Corn and Soybean Futures Markets: Evidence from WASDE Reports," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 89-103, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Garcia, Philip & Irwin, Scott H. & Leuthold, Raymond M. & Yang, Li, 1997. "The value of public information in commodity futures markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 559-570, April.
    7. Baur, Robert F & Orazem, Peter F, 1994. "The Rationality and Price Effects of U.S. Department of Agriculture Forecasts of Oranges," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(2), pages 681-695, June.
    8. Scott H. Irwin & Darrel L. Good, 2004. "Evaluation of USDA Interval Forecasts of Corn and Soybean Prices," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(4), pages 990-1004.
    9. T. Randall Fortenbery & Daniel A. Sumner, 1993. "The effects of USDA reports in futures and options markets," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 157-173, April.
    10. 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.
    11. David I. Harvey & Stephen J. Leybourne & Paul Newbold, 2001. "Analysis of a panel of UK macroeconomic forecasts," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 4(1), pages 37-55.
    12. Michael K. Adjemian, 2012. "Quantifying the WASDE Announcement Effect," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 238-256.
    13. Botto, Augusto C. & Isengildina, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L., 2006. "Accuracy Trends and Sources of Forecast Errors in WASDE Balance Sheet Categories for Corn and Soybeans," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21332, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Nordhaus, William D, 1987. "Forecasting Efficiency: Concepts and Applications," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 667-674, November.
    15. Abarbanell, Jeffrey S & Bernard, Victor L, 1992. "Tests of Analysts' Overreaction/Underreaction to Earnings Information as an Explanation for Anomalous Stock Price Behavior," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(3), pages 1181-1207, July.
    16. Egelkraut, Thorsten M. & Garcia, Philip & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L., 2003. "An Evaluation of Crop Forecast Accuracy for Corn and Soybeans: USDA and Private Information Agencies," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 1-17, April.
    17. Clements, Michael P, 1995. "Rationality and the Role of Judgement in Macroeconomic Forecasting," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(429), pages 410-420, March.
    18. Allen, P. Geoffrey, 1994. "Economic forecasting in agriculture," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 81-135, June.
    19. Sanders, Dwight R. & Manfredo, Mark R., 2002. "Usda Production Forecasts For Pork, Beef, And Broilers: An Evaluation," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 27(1), pages 1-14, July.
    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. Xiao, Jinzhi & Lence, Sergio H. & Hart, Chad E., 2015. "Do analysts forecast the ending stocks or the USDA forecasts?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205759, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Bahram Sanginabadi, 2018. "USDA Forecasts: A meta-analysis study," Papers 1801.06575, arXiv.org.
    3. Goyal, Raghav & Adjemian, Michael K., 2021. "The 2019 government shutdown increased uncertainty in major agricultural commodity markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    4. Olga Isengildina-Massa & Berna Karali & Scott H Irwin, 2017. "Do Markets Correct for Smoothing in USDA Crop Production Forecasts? Evidence from Private Analysts and Futures Prices," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 559-583.
    5. MacDonald, Stephen & Ash, Mark & Cooke, Bryce, 2017. "The Evolution of Inefficiency in USDA’s Forecasts of U.S. and World Soybean Markets," MPRA Paper 87545, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Karali, Berna & Isengildina-Massa, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Adjemian, Michael K. & Johansson, Robert, 2019. "Are USDA reports still news to changing crop markets?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 66-76.
    2. Xiao, Jinzhi, 2015. "Essays on the forecasts of ending stocks," ISU General Staff Papers 201501010800005902, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Ying, Jiahui & Shonkwiler, J. Scott, 2017. "A Temporal Impact Assessment Method for the Informational Content of USDA Reports in Corn and Soybean Futures Markets," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258201, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Ager, P. & Kappler, M. & Osterloh, S., 2009. "The accuracy and efficiency of the Consensus Forecasts: A further application and extension of the pooled approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 167-181.
    5. Masahiro Ashiya, 2006. "Testing the rationality of forecast revisions made by the IMF and the OECD," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 25-36.
    6. Andrew M. McKenzie & Jessica L. Darby, 2017. "Information Content of USDA Rice Reports and Price Reactions of Rice Futures," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 552-568, September.
    7. Tianyang Zhang & Ziran Li, 2022. "Can a rational expectation storage model explain the USDA ending grain stocks forecast errors?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 313-337, March.
    8. Olga Isengildina-Massa & Scott H. Irwin & Darrel L. Good & Jennifer K. Gomez, 2008. "Impact of WASDE reports on implied volatility in corn and soybean markets," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 473-490.
    9. MacDonald, Stephen & Ash, Mark & Cooke, Bryce, 2017. "The Evolution of Inefficiency in USDA’s Forecasts of U.S. and World Soybean Markets," MPRA Paper 87545, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Isengildina-Massa, Olga & Cao, Xiang & Karali, Berna & Irwin, Scott H. & Adjemian, Michael & Johansson, Robert C., 2021. "When does USDA information have the most impact on crop and livestock markets?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    11. Isiklar, Gultekin, 2005. "On aggregation bias in fixed-event forecast efficiency tests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 312-316, December.
    12. Covey, Theodore & Erickson, Kenneth W., 2003. "Evaluating USDA Forecasts of Farm Assets: 1986-2002," 2003 Regional Committee NCT-194, October 6-7, 2003; Kansas City, Missouri 132405, Regional Research Committee NC-1014: Agricultural and Rural Finance Markets in Transition.
    13. 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.
    14. Clements, Michael P., 2010. "Explanations of the inconsistencies in survey respondents' forecasts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 536-549, May.
    15. Dovern, Jonas & Weisser, Johannes, 2011. "Accuracy, unbiasedness and efficiency of professional macroeconomic forecasts: An empirical comparison for the G7," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 452-465.
    16. Siddhartha S. Bora & Ani L. Katchova & Todd H. Kuethe, 2021. "The Rationality of USDA Forecasts under Multivariate Asymmetric Loss," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(3), pages 1006-1033, May.
    17. Lehecka, Georg V., 2014. "The Value of USDA Crop Progress and Condition Information: Reactions of Corn and Soybean Futures Markets," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 1-18, April.
    18. repec:ags:jrapmc:122314 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Unknown, 2004. "Agricultural Finance Markets in Transition Proceedings of The Annual Meeting of NCT-194 Hosted by the Center for the Study of Rural America, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City October 6 - 7, 2003," Research Bulletins 122103, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    20. Sebastiano Manzan, 2011. "Differential Interpretation in the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(5), pages 993-1017, August.
    21. Isengildina, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L., 2004. "Does The Market Anticipate Smoothing In Usda Crop Production Forecasts?," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20145, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agribusiness; Demand and Price Analysis;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:aaea14:170642. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    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.