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Eliciting GDP Forecasts from the FOMC’s Minutes Around the Financial Crisis

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Abstract

Stekler and Symington (2016) construct indexes that quantify the Federal Open Market Committee's views about the U.S. economy, as expressed in the minutes of the FOMC's meetings. These indexes provide insights on the FOMC's deliberations, especially at the onset of the Great Recession. The current paper complements Stekler and Symington's analysis by showing that their indexes reveal relatively minor bias in the FOMC's views when the indexes are reinterpreted as forecasts. Additionally, these indexes provide a proximate mechanism for inferring the Fed staff's Greenbook forecasts of the U.S. real GDP growth rate, years before the Greenbook's public release.

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  • Neil R. Ericsson, 2015. "Eliciting GDP Forecasts from the FOMC’s Minutes Around the Financial Crisis," International Finance Discussion Papers 1152, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:1152
    DOI: 10.17016/IFDP.2015.1152
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Autometrics; bias; Fed; financial crisis; FOMC; forecasts; GDP; Great Recession; Greenbook; impulse indicator saturation; projections; Tealbook; United States;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • 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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