Are Central Banks' Projections Meaningful?

Central banks’ projections– i.e. forecasts conditional on a given interest rate path– are often criticized on the grounds that their underlying policy assumptions are inconsistent with the existence of a unique equilibrium in many forward-looking models. The present paper describes three alternative approaches to constructing projections that are not subject to that criticism, using a standard New Keynesian model as a reference framework. Yet, and even though they imply an identical path for the interest rate, the three approaches are shown to generate di¤erent projections for inflation and output. That result calls into question the meaning and usefulness of such projections.