IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/awi/wpaper/0714.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Forecast revisions in the presence of news: a lab investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Lustenhouwer, Joep
  • Salle, Isabelle

Abstract

We conduct a laboratory experiment in a fully-fledged macroeconomic model where participants receive information about future government spending shocks and are tasked with repeatedly forecasting output over a given horizon. By eliciting several-period-head predictions, we investigate forecast reaction to news and revision. The lab forecasts are consistent with stylized facts on reaction to news established in the survey literature. We find that subjects steadily learn the magnitude of the effect of the shocks on output, albeit not to full extent. We further find little support for fully backward-looking expectations. We rationalize the experimental data in the context of a Bayesian updating model, which provides a better description of the behaviors in longer-horizon environments and among more attentive and experienced subjects.

Suggested Citation

  • Lustenhouwer, Joep & Salle, Isabelle, 2022. "Forecast revisions in the presence of news: a lab investigation," Working Papers 0714, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:awi:wpaper:0714
    Note: This paper is part of http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/view/schriftenreihen/sr-3.html
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-316163
    File Function: Frontdoor page on HeiDOK
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/31616/13/Lustenhouwer_Salle_2022_dp_714.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marquardt, Philipp & Noussair, Charles N & Weber, Martin, 2019. "Rational expectations in an experimental asset market with shocks to market trends," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 116-140.
    2. Lustenhouwer, Joep, 2020. "Fiscal Stimulus In Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps," Working Papers 0683, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    3. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    4. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Saten Kumar, 2018. "How Do Firms Form Their Expectations? New Survey Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2671-2713, September.
    5. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2022. "Monetary Policy Communications and Their Effects on Household Inflation Expectations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(6), pages 1537-1584.
    6. Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh & Luba Petersen, 2021. "Coordinating expectations through central bank projections," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 883-918, September.
    7. Salle, Isabelle, 2022. "Comment on “No firm is an island? How industry conditions shape firms’ expectations” by Philippe Andrade, Olivier Coibion, Erwan Gautier and Yuriy Gorodnichenko," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 57-61.
    8. Evans, George W. & Hommes, Cars & McGough, Bruce & Salle, Isabelle, 2022. "Are long-horizon expectations (de-)stabilizing? Theory and experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 44-63.
    9. Kryvtsov, Oleksiy & Petersen, Luba, 2021. "Central bank communication that works: Lessons from lab experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 760-780.
    10. Rholes, Ryan & Petersen, Luba, 2021. "Should central banks communicate uncertainty in their projections?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 320-341.
    11. 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.
    12. Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh & Luba Petersen, 2017. "Coordinating expectations through central bank projections," Discussion Papers dp17-03, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    13. Lustenhouwer, Joep, 2020. "Fiscal stimulus in expectations-driven liquidity traps," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 661-687.
    14. Chen, Daniel L. & Schonger, Martin & Wickens, Chris, 2016. "oTree—An open-source platform for laboratory, online, and field experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 88-97.
    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. Kronick, Jeremy & Petersen, Luba, 2025. "Is monetary and fiscal policy conflict that dire?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).

    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. Lustenhouwer, Joep & Salle, Isabelle, 2025. "Learning to be rational in the presence of news: A lab investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    2. Kryvtsov, Oleksiy & Petersen, Luba, 2021. "Central bank communication that works: Lessons from lab experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 760-780.
    3. Ahrens, Steffen & Lustenhouwer, Joep & Tettamanzi, Michele, 2023. "The Stabilizing Effects of Publishing Strategic Central Bank Projections," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 826-868, April.
    4. Bao, Te & Dai, Yun & Duffy, John, 2025. "Least squares learning? Evidence from the laboratory," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    5. Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh & Luba Petersen, 2021. "Coordinating expectations through central bank projections," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 883-918, September.
    6. Cars Hommes & Julien Pinter & Isabelle Salle, 2023. "What People Believe about Monetary Finance and What We Can(‘t) Do about It: Evidence from a Large-Scale, Multi-Country Survey Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 10574, CESifo.
    7. Bao, Te & Hommes, Cars & Pei, Jiaoying, 2021. "Expectation formation in finance and macroeconomics: A review of new experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    8. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2022. "Information frictions across various types of inflation expectations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    9. Petersen, Luba & Rholes, Ryan, 2022. "Macroeconomic expectations, central bank communication, and background uncertainty: A COVID-19 laboratory experiment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    10. Ryan Rholes & Luba Petersen, 2020. "Should central banks communicate uncertainty in their projections?," Discussion Papers dp20-01, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    11. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    12. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    13. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    14. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Tiziano Ropele, 2020. "Inflation Expectations and Firm Decisions: New Causal Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 165-219.
    15. Beutel, Johannes & Metiu, Norbert & Stockerl, Valentin, 2021. "Toothless tiger with claws? Financial stability communication, expectations, and risk-taking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 53-69.
    16. Tim Munday & James Brookes, 2021. "Mark my words: the transmission of central bank communication to the general public via the print media," Bank of England working papers 944, Bank of England.
    17. Andrade, Philippe & Gautier, Erwan & Mengus, Eric, 2023. "What matters in households’ inflation expectations?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 50-68.
    18. Evans, George W. & Hommes, Cars & McGough, Bruce & Salle, Isabelle, 2022. "Are long-horizon expectations (de-)stabilizing? Theory and experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 44-63.
    19. Etienne Briand & Massimiliano Marcellino & Dalibor Stevanovic, 2024. "Inflation, Attention and Expectations," Working Papers 24-05, Chair in macroeconomics and forecasting, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management, revised Dec 2024.
    20. Bartosz Maćkowiak & Filip Matějka & Mirko Wiederholt, 2023. "Rational Inattention: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 226-273, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E70 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - 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:awi:wpaper:0714. 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: Gabi Rauscher The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Gabi Rauscher to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/awheide.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.