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An Empirical Review of Federal Reserve’s Informational Advantage

Abstract

Since Romer and Romer (2000), a large literature has dealt with the relative forecasting performance of Greenbook macroeconomic forecasts of the Federal Reserve. This paper empirically reviews the existing results by comparing the different methods, data and samples used previously. The sample period is extended compared to previous studies and both real-time and final data are considered. We confirm that the Fed has a superior forecasting performance on inflation but not on output. In addition, we show that the longer the horizon, the more pronounced the advantage of Fed on inflation and that this superi- ority seems to decrease but remains prominent in the more recent period. The second objective of this paper is to underline the potential sources of this supe- riority. It appears that it may stem from better information rather than from a better model of the economy.

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Paper provided by Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE) in its series Documents de Travail de l'OFCE with number 2009-03.

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Date of creation: 2009
Handle: RePEc:fce:doctra:0903
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
  • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

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Cited by:

  1. Alexandre Kohlhas, 2015. "Learning-by-Sharing: Monetary Policy and the Information Content of Public Signals," 2015 Meeting Papers 57, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  2. Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance, 2016. "Central Bank Sentiment and Policy Expectations," Sciences Po publications 2016-29, Sciences Po.
  3. Jos Jansen & Jasper de Winter, 2016. "Improving model-based near-term GDP forecasts by subjective forecasts: A real-time exercise for the G7 countries," DNB Working Papers 507, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
  4. Christophe Blot & Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance, 2017. "Does Monetary Policy generate Asset Price Bubbles?," Working Papers 2017-06, CRESE.
  5. Messina, Jeffrey D. & Sinclair, Tara M. & Stekler, Herman, 2015. "What can we learn from revisions to the Greenbook forecasts?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 54-62.
  6. Paul Hubert, 2015. "Do Central Bank Forecasts Influence Private Agents? Forecasting Performance versus Signals," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 771-789, 06.

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