Can economic perception surveys improve macroeconomic forecasting in Chile?

We compare the timing, representativeness, questionnaires, and response aggregation of five Chilean economic perception surveys for macroeconomic forecasting, noting the shortcomings of composite indices combining questions with different focus and time perspective. We propose eight alternative measures distinguishing between current sentiment and future expectations and between personal and country-wide perceptions. Our results suggest that future and country-wide perceptions are formed with information other than personal and current sentiment, and that the latter are somewhat affected by the former. When analyzing its predictive ability for macro-aggregates, we find a rather strong relationship between personal and aggregate perceptions, consumption plans and actual consumption, especially of durables, outpacing the predictive ability of the existing synthetic indicator. On the business side, surveys seem to be stronger predicting employment than investment, while employment and investment seem to Granger-cause personal sentiment/expectations. Overall, while surveys of economic perceptions provide rich information, it is necessary to select the surveys and questions that are better revealing economic behavior.