IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/moneco/v60y2013i8p967-982.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inattentive professional forecasters

Author

Listed:
  • Andrade, Philippe
  • Le Bihan, Hervé

Abstract

Using the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters to characterize expectations at the micro-level, we emphasize two new facts: forecasters (i) fail to systematically update their forecasts and (ii) disagree even when updating. It is moreover found that forecasters have predictable forecast errors. These facts are qualitatively supportive of recent models of inattention and suggest a setup where agents imperfectly process information due to both sticky information à la Mankiw–Reis, and noisy information à la Sims. However, building and estimating such an expectation model, we find that it cannot quantitatively replicate the error and disagreement observed in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrade, Philippe & Le Bihan, Hervé, 2013. "Inattentive professional forecasters," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 967-982.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:60:y:2013:i:8:p:967-982
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2013.08.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393213001190
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2013.08.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernando E. Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Luigi Paciello, 2011. "Optimal Price Setting With Observation and Menu Costs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1909-1960.
    2. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Weale, Martin, 2006. "Survey Expectations," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 715-776, Elsevier.
    3. Michael T. Kiley, 2007. "A Quantitative Comparison of Sticky-Price and Sticky-Information Models of Price Setting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 101-125, February.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    5. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 769-803, June.
    6. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis & Justin Wolfers, 2004. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 209-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Klenow, Peter J. & Willis, Jonathan L., 2007. "Sticky information and sticky prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(Supplemen), pages 79-99, September.
    8. Laura L. Veldkamp, 2011. "Information Choice in Macroeconomics and Finance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9621.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    12. Carlos Bowles & Roberta Friz & Veronique Genre & Geoff Kenny & Aidan Meyler & Tuomas Rautanen, 2007. "The ECB survey of professional forecasters (SPF) – A review after eight years’ experience," Occasional Paper Series 59, European Central Bank.
    13. Olivier Coibion, 2010. "Testing the Sticky Information Phillips Curve," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 87-101, February.
    14. Michael J. Lamla & Samad Sarferaz, 2012. "Updating inflation expectations," KOF Working papers 12-301, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    15. J÷Rg D÷Pke & Jonas Dovern & Ulrich Fritsche & Jiri Slacalek, 2008. "Sticky Information Phillips Curves: European Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1513-1520, October.
    16. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    17. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Strategic Interaction among Heterogeneous Price-Setters in an Estimated DSGE Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 920-940, August.
    18. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    19. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    20. Zarnowitz, Victor, 1985. "Rational Expectations and Macroeconomic Forecasts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(4), pages 293-311, October.
    21. Patton, Andrew J. & Timmermann, Allan, 2010. "Why do forecasters disagree? Lessons from the term structure of cross-sectional dispersion," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 803-820, October.
    22. Ricardo Reis, 2006. "Inattentive Producers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 793-821.
    23. Branch, William A., 2007. "Sticky information and model uncertainty in survey data on inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 245-276, January.
    24. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2006. "Stock Prices, News, and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1293-1307, September.
    25. Dovern, Jonas & Fritsche, Ulrich & Loungani, Prakash & Tamirisa, Natalia, 2013. "Information Rigidities in Economic Growth Forecasts: Evidence from a Large International Panel," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79936, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    26. Carvalho Carlos, 2006. "Heterogeneity in Price Stickiness and the Real Effects of Monetary Shocks," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(3), pages 1-58, December.
    27. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    28. Edmund S. Phelps, 1968. "Money-Wage Dynamics and Labor-Market Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76, pages 678-678.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    3. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    4. Carrera Cesar, 2012. "Estimating Information Rigidity Using Firms' Survey Data," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-34, June.
    5. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics: Accommodating Frictions in Coordination," NBER Working Papers 22297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Yingying Xu & Zhixin Liu & Zichao Jia & Chi-Wei Su, 2017. "Is time-variant information stickiness state-dependent?," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 16(3), pages 169-187, December.
    8. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2021. "Measuring the slowly evolving trend in US inflation with professional forecasts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 1-17, January.
    9. Andrade, Philippe & Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Moench, Emanuel, 2016. "Fundamental disagreement," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 106-128.
    10. Lena Dräger & Michael J. Lamla, 2017. "Imperfect Information and Consumer Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Microdata," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(6), pages 933-968, December.
    11. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Reis, Ricardo, 2010. "Imperfect Information and Aggregate Supply," Scholarly Articles 33907956, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    12. Vereda, Luciano & Savignon, João & Gouveia da Silva, Tarciso, 2021. "A new method to assess the degree of information rigidity using fixed-event forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1576-1589.
    13. Orlando Gomes, 2012. "Transitional Dynamics in Sticky-Information General Equilibrium Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 387-407, April.
    14. Lena Draeger & Michael J. Lamla, 2013. "Imperfect information and inflation expectations," KOF Working papers 13-329, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    15. Lena Dräger & Michael Lamla, 2013. "Imperfect Information and Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Microdata," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201301, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    16. Kim, Insu & Kim, Young Se, 2019. "Inattentive agents and inflation forecast error dynamics: A Bayesian DSGE approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    17. Carrera, César & Ramírez-Rondán, N.R., 2019. "Inflation, Information Rigidity, And The Sticky Information Phillips Curve," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(7), pages 2597-2615, October.
    18. Czudaj, Robert L., 2022. "Heterogeneity of beliefs and information rigidity in the crude oil market: Evidence from survey data," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    19. Lanne, Markku & Luoma, Arto & Luoto, Jani, 2009. "A naïve sticky information model of households' inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1332-1344, June.
    20. James M. Nason & Gregor W. Smith, 2013. "Reverse Kalman filtering U.S. inflation with sticky professional forecasts," Working Papers 13-34, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expectations; Imperfect information; Inattention; Forecast errors; Disagreement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:eee:moneco:v:60:y:2013:i:8:p:967-982. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566 .

    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.