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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
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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
  • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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Cited by:

  1. Tara M. Sinclair & Jeff Messina & Herman Stekler, 2014. "What Can We Learn From Revisions to the Greenbook Forecasts?," Working Papers 2014-14, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
  2. Paul Hubert, 2011. "Do central banks forecast influence private agents ? Forecasting performance vs. signals," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2011-20, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).

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