1887

OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis

The Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis has been discontinued as of 24 June 2016. This journal was published jointly with CIRET from 2004 to 2015. For more information see www.ciret.org/jbcy.

English

Keywords: business tendency, economic measurement, economic statistics, cyclical indicators, business surveys, business cycles, economic research, business investment, consumer surveys, economic indicators, economic cycle, cyclical fluctuations, short-term, economic analysis

What's behind the survey values?

An analysis of individual forecasters' behaviour

This paper studies the internal consistency of professional forecasts on a micro level using three alternative data sets. The analysis is mainly based on the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasts for the euro area, but for comparison we also study the Consensus Economics survey and Survey of Professional Forecasts for the US. Forecast uncertainty is explored using two alternative measures, the conventional standard deviation of individual point forecasts and the mean uncertainty based on subjective probability distributions of survey respondents. Our analysis indicates that individual forecasters’ price and real GDP expectations are positively related, but that forecasters deviate systematically from each other. We also find clear evidence that individual forecasters form expectations according to the hybrid specification of the New Keynesian Phillips curve. On a micro level, inflation uncertainty seems to be closely related to output uncertainty. However, the relationship between alternative measures of uncertainty is relatively weak.

English

Keywords: Forecasting, Survey data, Expectations, Phillips curve
JEL: E31: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles / Price Level; Inflation; Deflation; E37: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles / Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles: Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications; C53: Mathematical and Quantitative Methods / Econometric Modeling / Forecasting and Prediction Methods; Simulation Methods
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