Social value of public information: testing the limits to transparency

Transparency has become an almost universal virtue among central banks. The paper tests empirically, for the case of the Federal Reserve, two hypotheses about central bank transparency derived from the debate of Morris and Shin (2002) and Svensson (2006). First, the paper finds that the precision of communication is a key determinant of the predictability of both FOMC decisions as well as the future policy path. Second, the effectiveness of communication is found to depend on the market environment. Specifically, a given statement may enhance predictability in an environment of high market uncertainty, but may reduce it when uncertainty is low. The findings underline the limits to transparency and stress the need for communication to be flexible and adjust to market conditions in order for central banks to achieve their ultimate objectives. JEL Classification: E52, E58, D82communication, effectiveness, Federal Reserve, monetary policy, Predictability, transparency

The Strategy of Professional Forecasting

This paper develops and compares two theories of strategic behavior of professional forecasters. The first theory posits that forecasters compete in a forecasting contest with pre-specified rules. In equilibrium of a winner-take-all contest, forecasts are excessively differentiated. According to the alternative reputational cheap talk theory, forecasters aim at convincing the market that they are well informed. The market evaluates their forecasting talent on the basis of the forecasts and the realized state. If the market has naive views on forecasters' behavior, forecasts are biased toward the prior mean. Otherwise, equilibrium forecasts are unbiased but imprecise.Forecasting; Contest; Reputation; Cheap Talk

Forecasting and policy making

This chapter investigates the use of economic forecasting in policy making. Forecasts are used in many policy areas to project the consequences of particular policy measures for policymakers’ targets. After reviewing some important forecasts of fiscal authorities and central banks, we proceed to focus on the role of forecasts in monetary policy. A formal framework serves to differentiate the role of forecasts in simple feedback rules versus optimal control policies. We then provide empirical evidence that central bank policies in the United States and the euro area are well described by interest rate rules responding to forecasts of inflation and economic activity rather than outcomes. Next, we provide a detailed exposition of methods for producing forecasts and the associated forecasting models. Practical applications with U.S. or euro area data are reported. Particular issues discussed include the use of economic structure in interpreting forecasts and the implementation of different conditioning assumptions regarding future policy that play a role in practice. We also compare the accuracy of model and expert forecasts and measure the degree of forecast heterogeneity. Finally, we utilize macroeconomic models to study the interaction of forecasting and policy by evaluating the performance and robustness of forecast versu

Explaining the Policy Constraints of Anti-democratic Regimes by Means of Sequential OLS-Regressions

One of the key problems of many sociological regression models is their modest explanatory power. This has not only to do with the insufficient development of the underlying theories but also with the free will of the concerned social actors, which manifests itself in irrational, spontaneous, and sometimes even arbitrary decisions. The foreign and economic policy of the US government under Donald Trump is an excellent example of this source of indeterminacy. An alternative and more promising approach is an explanation of the constraints of social behaviour by the unequal distribution of power resources and the competing interests of the actors concerned. This approach requires, on the one hand, enough observational data which include cases that reached the analysed constraints. On the other hand, there is a need for statistical procedures which estimate and explain these constraints. Assuming that sufficient amounts of data are available, this paper proposes the use of sequential OLS regressions, which eliminate step by step non-critical observations in order to identify the cases that reached the mentioned constraints. For illustrative purposes, the author analyses the policy space of anti-democratic regimes with regard to their possibilities of curbing democracy. On the basis of the democracy scores of Freedom House, the author explores the governmental constraints set by (i) national civil societies and (ii) international NGOs for the promotion of political/civil rights. The related sequential regressions allow for an assessment of how effective the different constraints are and how far democracy may deteriorate in the worst case under given structural conditions

Estimating a small DSGE model under rational and measured expectations: some comparisons

Using European panel data and GMM system estimation, we explore the empirical performance of the standard three-equation New Keynesian macro model under different informational assumptions. As a benchmark, we consider the performance of the model under rational expectations and revised (final) data. Alternatively, instead of imposing rational expectations hypothesis we use real- time information, ie Consensus Economics survey data, to generate empirical proxies for expectations in the model and the current output gap in the Taylor rule. We demonstrate that, contrary to the assumption of rational expectations, the errors in measured expectations and real-time current output gaps are positively autocorrelated. We produce evidence that the use of real-time variables (including measured expectations) improves the empirical performance of the New Keynesian model. Relaxation of the rational expectations hypothesis makes a noticeable difference for the parameters of the New Keynesian model, especially in the Taylor rule.DSGE model; survey expectations; GMM system estimation; expectations; estimation

Interval-valued upside potential and downside risk portfolio optimisation

A novel interval optimisation approach is developed to include imprecise forecasts into the portfolio selection process for investors measuring upside potential and downside risk as deviations from a target return. Crisp scenarios are substituted by interval scenarios and the resulting interval optimisation problem is solved in a tractable manner by means of a bi-objective formulation exploiting a partial order relation between intervals. Four utility case studies involving assets from the F.T.S.E. M.I.B. Index are considered to illustrate how impreciseness can be efficiently handled in portfolio management

Learning, expectations formation and the pitfalls of optimal control monetary policy

This paper examines the robustness characteristics of optimal control policies derived under the assumption of rational expectations to alternative models of expectations. We assume that agents have imperfect knowledge about the precise structure of the economy and form expectations using a forecasting model that they continuously update based on incoming data. We find that the optimal control policy derived under the assumption of rational expectations can perform poorly when expectations deviate modestly from rational expectations. We then show that the optimal control policy can be made more robust by deemphasizing the stabilization of real economic activity and interest rates relative to inflation in the central bank loss function. That is, robustness to learning provides an incentive to employ a "conservative" central banker. We then examine two types of simple monetary policy rules from the literature that have been found to be robust to model misspecification in other contexts. We find that these policies are robust to empirically plausible parameterizations of the learning models and perform about as well or better than optimal control policies.Rational expectations (Economic theory) ; Econometric models

Learning, Expectations Formation, and the Pitfalls of Optimal Control Monetary Policy

This paper examines the robustness characteristics of optimal control policies derived under the assumption of rational expectations to alternative models of expectations. We assume that agents have imperfect knowledge about the precise structure of the economy and form expectations using a forecasting model that they continuously update based on incoming data. We find that the optimal control policy derived under the assumption of rational expectations can perform poorly when expectations deviate modestly from rational expectations. We then show that the optimal control policy can be made more robust by deemphasizing the stabilization of real economic activity and interest rates relative to inflation in the central bank loss function. That is, robustness to learning provides an incentive to employ a "conservative" central banker. We then examine two types of simple monetary policy rules from the literature that have been found to be robust to model misspecification in other contexts. We find that these policies are robust to empirically plausible parameterizations of the learning models and perform about as well or better than optimal control policies.Rational expectations, robust control, model uncertainty