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How well does the Beige Book reflect economic activity? Evaluating qualitative information quantitatively

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Author Info
Nathan S. Balke
D'Ann Petersen

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Abstract

Eight times a year, approximately two weeks before every FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve releases a description of economic conditions in the twelve Federal Reserve districts. Called the Beige Book, this description relies primarily on surveys and anecdotal evidence gathered by the twelve district banks. In this paper, we read and numerically scored past Beige Books in order to determine the extent to which the descriptions in these books accurately reflect current economic activity as measured by quarterly real GDP growth. We find that both in-sample and out-sample, the quantitative Beige Book indices do have significant predictive content for current and next quarter real GDP growth. Furthermore, the Beige Book has information about current quarter real GDP growth not present in other indicators such as the Blue Chip Consensus Forecast or time series models that use real-time data.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in its series Working Papers with number 98-02.

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Date of creation: 1998
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Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:98-02

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Related research
Keywords: Economic policy ; Federal Open Market Committee ; Monetary policy;

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References listed on IDEAS
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. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-94, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Havrilesky, Thomas, 1991. "The Frequency of Monetary Policy Signaling from the Administration to the Federal Reserve: Note," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 423-28, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Havrilesky, Thomas, 1990. "The Influence of the Federal Advisory Council on Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(1), pages 37-50, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1989. "Scoring the Leading Indicators," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 369-91, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Bharat Trehan, 1989. "Forecasting growth in current quarter real GNP," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Win, pages 39-52. [Downloadable!]
  6. Jeff E. Biddle & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1998. "Beauty, Productivity and Discrimination: Lawyers' Looks and Lucre," NBER Working Papers 5366, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Bharat Trehan, 1992. "Predicting contemporaneous output," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-11. [Downloadable!]
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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. Evan F. Koenig, 2002. "Using the Purchasing Managers' Index to assess the economy's strength and the likely direction of monetary policy," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. [Downloadable!]
  2. Donna K. Ginther & Madeline Zavodny, 2001. "The Beige Book: Timely information on the regional economy," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Q3, pages 19-29. [Downloadable!]
  3. Nathan S. Balke & Mine K. Yücel, 2000. "Evaluating the Eleventh District's Beige Book," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q IV, pages 2-10. [Downloadable!]
  4. Madeline Zavodny & Donna K. Ginther, 2003. "Does the Beige Book move financial markets?," Working Paper 2003-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
  5. Michelle T. Armesto & Rubén Hernández-Murillo & Michael T. Owyang & Jeremy M. Piger, 2007. "Identifying asymmetry in the language of the Beige Book: a mixed data sampling approach," Working Papers 2007-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  6. Monica Martin & Cristiano Papile, 2004. "The Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey: An Assessment," Working Papers 04-15, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
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