IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2017-107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What's the Story? A New Perspective on the Value of Economic Forecasts

Author

Abstract

We apply textual analysis tools to measure the degree of optimism versus pessimism of the text that describes Federal Reserve Board forecasts published in the Greenbook. The resulting measure of Greenbook text sentiment, ?Tonality,? is found to be strongly correlated, in the intuitive direction, with the Greenbook point forecast for key economic variables such as unemployment and inflation. We then examine whether Tonality has incremental power for predicting unemployment, GDP growth, and inflation up to four quarters ahead. We find it to have significant and substantive predictive power for both GDP growth and unemployment, particularly since 1991: higher (more optimistic) Tonality presages higher GDP growth and lower unemployment, relative to the Greenbook point forecasts. We then test whether Tonality helps predict monetary policy and stock returns. Higher Tonality has some power to predict tighter than forecasted monetary policy, while it has substantial power fo r predicting higher 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month stock market returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher A. Hollrah & Steven A. Sharpe & Nitish R. Sinha, 2017. "What's the Story? A New Perspective on the Value of Economic Forecasts," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-107, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2017-107
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2017.107r1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2017107r1pap.pdf
    File Function: (Revision)
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2017107pap.pdf
    File Function: (Original)
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2017.107r1?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. Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    2. Sinclair, Tara M. & Joutz, Fred & Stekler, H.O., 2010. "Can the Fed predict the state of the economy?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 28-32, July.
    3. Carlos Carvalho & Eric Hsu & Fernanda Nechio, 2016. "Measuring the effect of the zero lower bound on monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2016-6, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    5. Croushore, Dean & Stark, Tom, 2001. "A real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 111-130, November.
    6. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1994. "Automatic Lag Selection in Covariance Matrix Estimation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(4), pages 631-653.
    7. Aggarwal, Raj & Mohanty, Sunil & Song, Frank, 1995. "Are Survey Forecasts of Macroeconomic Variables Rational?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(1), pages 99-119, January.
    8. Gurkaynak, Refet S. & Sack, Brian T. & Swanson, Eric P., 2007. "Market-Based Measures of Monetary Policy Expectations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 201-212, April.
    9. 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.
    10. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Brian Sack & Eric Swanson, 2005. "The Sensitivity of Long-Term Interest Rates to Economic News: Evidence and Implications for Macroeconomic Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 425-436, March.
    11. Shapiro, Adam Hale & Sudhof, Moritz & Wilson, Daniel J., 2022. "Measuring news sentiment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 221-243.
    12. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    13. Stark, Tom & Croushore, Dean, 2002. "Forecasting with a real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 507-531, December.
    14. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    15. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Erratum to "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?"," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1849-1849, October.
    16. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    17. Asquith, Paul & Mikhail, Michael B. & Au, Andrea S., 2005. "Information content of equity analyst reports," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 245-282, February.
    18. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    19. 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.
    20. Simon Gilchrist & Egon Zakrajsek, 2012. "Credit Spreads and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(4), pages 1692-1720, June.
    21. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    22. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    23. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Williams, John C., 2009. "Forecasting Recessions: The Puzzle of the Enduring Power of the Yield Curve," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 492-503.
    24. Zarnowitz, Victor, 1985. "Rational Expectations and Macroeconomic Forecasts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(4), pages 293-311, October.
    25. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    26. Andrew Atkeson & Lee E. Ohanian, 2001. "Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 25(Win), pages 2-11.
    27. Ball, Ray, 1978. "Anomalies in relationships between securities' yields and yield-surrogates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(2-3), pages 103-126.
    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. Gu, Chen & Chen, Denghui & Stan, Raluca & Shen, Aizhong, 2022. "It is not just What you say, but How you say it: Why tonality matters in central bank communication," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 216-231.
    2. Jones, Jacob T. & Sinclair, Tara M. & Stekler, Herman O., 2020. "A textual analysis of Bank of England growth forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1478-1487.

    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. Christopher A. Hollrah & Steven A. Sharpe & Nitish R. Sinha, 2020. "The Power of Narratives in Economic Forecasts," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-001, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Sharpe, Steven A. & Sinha, Nitish R. & Hollrah, Christopher A., 2023. "The power of narrative sentiment in economic forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1097-1121.
    3. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary Policy, Imperfect Information and the Expectations Channel," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1u, Sciences Po.
    6. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2013. "Forecasting Inflation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2-56, Elsevier.
    7. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Revisiting the Greenbook’s relative forecasting performance," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 151-179.
    8. 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.
    9. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3pot7260lh88lrfhrhvs85lh2f is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/35kgubh40v9gfpnuruelqjnptb is not listed on IDEAS
    13. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/3pot7260lh88lrfhrhvs85lh2f is not listed on IDEAS
    14. 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.
    15. Salisu, Afees A. & Ademuyiwa, Idris & Isah, Kazeem O., 2018. "Revisiting the forecasting accuracy of Phillips curve: The role of oil price," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 334-356.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. , & Stein, Tobias, 2021. "Equity premium predictability over the business cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 16357, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. McNeil, James, 2023. "Monetary policy and the term structure of inflation expectations with information frictions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    20. Massimiliano Marcellino, 2008. "A linear benchmark for forecasting GDP growth and inflation?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 305-340.
    21. Gardner, Ben & Scotti, Chiara & Vega, Clara, 2022. "Words speak as loudly as actions: Central bank communication and the response of equity prices to macroeconomic announcements," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 387-409.
    22. Chen, Yu-chin & Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Zivot, Eric, 2014. "Forecasting inflation using commodity price aggregates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 183(1), pages 117-134.
    23. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken & Elmar Mertens, 2020. "Modeling Time-Varying Uncertainty of Multiple-Horizon Forecast Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 17-33, March.
    24. Chengsi Zhang & Denise R. Osborn & Dong Heon Kim, 2008. "The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: From Sticky Inflation to Sticky Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 667-699, June.
    25. Clements, Michael P., 2014. "Probability distributions or point predictions? Survey forecasts of US output growth and inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 99-117.
    26. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Forecasts; Monetary policy; Text Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G40 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2017-107. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.