IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea16/235349.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Detecting the Sources of Information Rigidity: Analyzing Forecast Bias and Smoothing in USDA’s Soybean Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • MacDonald, Stephen
  • Ash, Mark

Abstract

USDA’s U.S. soybean ending stock forecasts are upwardly biased. To determine the source of this bias, we examine the revision characteristics of the ending stocks forecasts, and examine USDA’s forecasts of other U.S. soybean balance sheet variables and foreign soybean balance sheet variables. Bias in USDA’s soybean export forecasts is the most likely source of ending stock forecast bias. In turn, bias in the U.S. export forecasts has diverse sources, including bias in foreign trade estimates and late in the forecast cycle slow updating of the forecasts to reflect new information.

Suggested Citation

  • MacDonald, Stephen & Ash, Mark, 2016. "Detecting the Sources of Information Rigidity: Analyzing Forecast Bias and Smoothing in USDA’s Soybean Forecasts," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235349, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea16:235349
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.235349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/235349/files/AAEA_2016_WASDE_soy_fcst_05172016_2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.235349?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. Williams,Jeffrey C. & Wright,Brian D., 2005. "Storage and Commodity Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521023399, October.
    2. Isengildina-Massa, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L. & Gomez, Jennifer K., 2008. "The Impact of Situation and Outlook Information in Corn and Soybean Futures Markets: Evidence from WASDE Reports," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 89-103, April.
    3. repec:cup:jagaec:v:40:y:2008:i:1:p:89-103_6 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. MacDonald, Stephen, 1992. "The Accuracy of USDA's Export Forecasts," Staff Reports 278679, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Botto, Augusto C. & Isengildina, Olga & Irwin, Scott H. & Good, Darrel L., 2006. "Accuracy Trends and Sources of Forecast Errors in WASDE Balance Sheet Categories for Corn and Soybeans," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21332, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Nordhaus, William D, 1987. "Forecasting Efficiency: Concepts and Applications," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 667-674, November.
    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. Goyal, Raghav & Adjemian, Michael K. & Glauber, Joseph & Meyer, Seth, 2023. "Decomposing USDA Ending Stocks Forecast Errors," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 48(2), May.

    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. MacDonald, Stephen & Ash, Mark & Cooke, Bryce, 2017. "The Evolution of Inefficiency in USDA’s Forecasts of U.S. and World Soybean Markets," MPRA Paper 87545, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Xiao, Jinzhi & Lence, Sergio H. & Hart, Chad, 2014. "Usda And Private Analysts' Forecasts Of Ending Stocks: How Good Are They?," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170642, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Christophe Gouel, 2020. "The Value of Public Information in Storable Commodity Markets: Application to the Soybean Market," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 846-865, May.
    4. Tianyang Zhang & Ziran Li, 2022. "Can a rational expectation storage model explain the USDA ending grain stocks forecast errors?," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 313-337, March.
    5. Lehecka, Georg V., 2014. "The Value of USDA Crop Progress and Condition Information: Reactions of Corn and Soybean Futures Markets," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Xiao, Jinzhi, 2015. "Essays on the forecasts of ending stocks," ISU General Staff Papers 201501010800005902, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    7. Olga Isengildina-Massa & Scott H. Irwin & Darrel L. Good & Jennifer K. Gomez, 2008. "Impact of WASDE reports on implied volatility in corn and soybean markets," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 473-490.
    8. Bunek, Gabriel D. & Janzen, Joseph P., 2024. "Does public information facilitate price consensus? Characterizing USDA announcement effects using realized volatility," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    9. Plantinga, Andrew J. & Provencher, Bill, 2001. "Internal Consistency In Models Of Optimal Resource Use Under Uncertainty," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20712, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    10. Chang, Chia-Lin & de Bruijn, Bert & Franses, Philip Hans & McAleer, Michael, 2013. "Analyzing fixed-event forecast revisions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 622-627.
    11. Hendry, David F. & Clements, Michael P., 2003. "Economic forecasting: some lessons from recent research," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 301-329, March.
    12. Nicolas Legrand, 2023. "War in Ukraine: The rational “wait‐and‐see” mode of global food markets," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 626-644, June.
    13. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:29:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Durmaz, Tunç, 2016. "Precautionary Storage in Electricity Markets," Discussion Papers 2016/5, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    15. Berna Karali & Scott H. Irwin & Olga Isengildina‐Massa, 2020. "Supply Fundamentals and Grain Futures Price Movements," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(2), pages 548-568, March.
    16. Alexander E. Saak, 2002. "Location and Marketing under Marketing Assistance Loan and Loan Deficiency Payment Programs," Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) Publications (archive only) 02-wp297, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    17. Ericsson, Neil R., 2016. "Eliciting GDP forecasts from the FOMC’s minutes around the financial crisis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 571-583.
    18. Brennan, Donna C., 2002. "Savings and technology choice for risk averse farmers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1-13.
    19. Thibault Fally & James Sayre, 2018. "Commodity Trade Matters," 2018 Meeting Papers 172, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Jian Li & Jean‐Paul Chavas, 2023. "A dynamic analysis of the distribution of commodity futures and spot prices," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(1), pages 122-143, January.
    21. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot J., 2023. "On FIRE, news, and expectations," Working Papers 42, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.

    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:ags:aaea16:235349. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.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.