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Rational bias in macroeconomic forecasts

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Author Info
David Laster
Paul Bennett
In Sun Geoum
Abstract

This paper develops a model of macroeconomic forecasting in which the wages firms pay their forecasters are a function of their accuracy as well as the publicity they generate for their employers by being correct. In the resulting Nash equilibrium, forecasters with identical models, information, and incentives nevertheless produce a variety of predictions in order to maximize their expected wages. In the case of heterogeneous incentives, the forecasters whose wages are most closely tied to publicity, as opposed to accuracy, produce the forecasts that deviate most from the consensus. We find empirical support for our model using a twenty-year panel of real GNP/GDP forecast data from the survey Blue Chip Economic Indicators. Although the consensus outperforms virtually every forecaster, many forecasters choose to deviate from it substantially and regularly. Moreover, the extent of this deviation varies by industry in a manner consistent with our model.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of New York in its series Staff Reports with number 21.

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Date of creation: 1997
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:21

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Keywords: Forecasting ; Wages;

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. Victor Zarnowitz & Louis A. Lambros, 1987. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," NBER Working Papers 1171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Dean Croushore, 1996. "Inflation forecasts: how good are they?," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue May, pages 15-25. [Downloadable!]
  3. Takatoshi Ito, 1990. "Foreign Exchange Rate Expectations: Micro Survey Data," NBER Working Papers 2679, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
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  5. 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 714-35, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Figlewski, Stephen & Wachtel, Paul, 1981. "The Formation of Inflationary Expectations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(1), pages 1-10, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Victor Zarnowitz & Phillip Braun, 1994. "Twenty-two Years of the NBER-ASA Quarterly Economic Outlook Surveys: Aspects and Comparisons of Forecasting Performance," NBER Working Papers 3965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Bonham, Carl & Cohen, Richard, 1995. "Testing the Rationality of Price Forecasts: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 284-89, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Haltiwanger, John C & Waldman, Michael, 1989. "Rational Expectations in the Aggregate," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 619-36, October.
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  10. Zarnowitz, Victor & Lambros, Louis A, 1987. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 591-621, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. McNees, Stephen K, 1978. "The "Rationality" of Economic Forecasts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 301-05, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Jeong, Jinook & Maddala, G S, 1996. "Testing the Rationality of Survey Data Using the Weighted Double-Bootstrapped Method of Moments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 296-302, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Victor Zarnowitz & Phillip Braun, 1993. "Twenty-two Years of the NBER-ASA Quarterly Economic Outlook Surveys: Aspects and Comparisons of Forecasting Performance," NBER Chapters, in: Business Cycles, Indicators and Forecasting, pages 11-94 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  14. Ehrbeck, Tilman & Waldmann, Robert, 1996. "Why Are Professional Forecasters Biased? Agency versus Behavioral Explanations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 111(1), pages 21-40, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-79, June.
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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. Massimiliano Marcellino, . "Further Results on MSFE Encompassing," Working Papers 143, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
  2. Tom Stark, 1997. "Macroeconomic forecasts and microeconomic forecasters in the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Working Papers 97-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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