Philadelphia Fed forecasting surveys: their value for research

For almost 20 years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has conducted both the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Livingston Survey. Both surveys of private-sector forecasters provide researchers, central bankers, news media, and the public with detailed forecasts of major macroeconomic variables. The surveys have proved helpful for people who are planning for the future, and they have also provided useful input into the decisions of policymakers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere. In “Philadelphia Fed Forecasting Surveys: Their Value for Research,” Dean Croushore provides an overview of the survey and discusses the ways in which researchers have used the survey.Federal Reserve banks ; Economic forecasting

Commentary on Estimating U.S. output growth with vintage data in a state-space framework

Economic development ; Economic conditions - United States

Low inflation: the surprise of the 1990s

For most of the 1990s, forecasters have been predicting an upturn in inflation. Yet, over that same period, the United States has experienced stable or declining inflation. Why have forecasts been at odds with reality? And why does it matter? In this article, Dean Croushore considers some answers to these questions and explains why inflation is the economic surprise of the decade.Inflation (Finance)

Do Consumer Confidence Indexes Help Forecast Consumer Spending in Real Time?

Could a researcher or policy analyst use data reported from surveys of consumer confidence to improve forecasts of consumer spending? This issue has been examined in the literature previously, which reached the conclusion that consumer confidence helped improve the forecasts slightly. But that research was based on final, revised data and thus did not use the data that would have been available to forecasters in real time. This paper remedies that shortcoming, using the Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists to analyze the quality of forecasts made with indexes of consumer confidence. The main finding is that the indexes of consumer confidence are not of significant value in forecasting consumer spending. In fact, in some cases, they make the forecasts significantly worse. --

A short-term model of the Fed's portfolio choice

What would happen if the Federal Reserve were to change the assets in its portfolio? Suppose that instead of using open-market operations in Treasury securities to increase the monetary base, the Fed were to engage in open-market operations in private securities or to use discount loans via a mechanism that allowed banks to borrow as much as they would like at a fixed discount rate. The analysis in this paper shows the impact on the economy in a static general-equilibrium model. This model follows Santomero (1983), adapted to evaluate a change in the Fed's portfolio and how that affects the economy's general equilibrium at a point in time. The nature of the exercise done here is completely static in nature and does not evaluate the economy's response to a disappearance of government debt, analysis of which would require a more complete model that's dynamic in nature and incorporates real effects. The present model focuses on the more narrow issue of the direction of portfolio changes with no real-side economic effects. But the model is general equilibrium in nature and thus performs a reasonable comparative-static exercise. In what follows, the author first describes the model in Section I. Next, the author models a situation in which the Fed changes its portfolio in such a way as to keep the interest rate on deposits from changing (Section II). Section III generates results under a special set of assumptions that lock most interest rates together. Section IV attempts to generalize the results to a situation in which the monetary base is unchanged. Section V summarizes the results.

Evaluating inflation forecasts

In the early 1980s, economists tested inflation forecasts and found that the forecasts were very bad. Either the surveys didn't capture forecasters' expectations, or forecasters didn't have rational expectations. However, the sample period being examined consisted mostly of data from the volatile 1970s, when forecasting was extremely difficult. The question is: If we run the same types of tests that were performed 15 years ago on an updated sample, will we find the same problems with the forecasts? This paper finds that much of the empirical work from 15 years ago does not stand the test of time. The forecast errors from the surveys aren't nearly as bad today as they were in the 1970s. However, some problems remain in the forecasts. It appears to be possible to improve inflation forecasts over some sample periods using bias regressions, and the forecasts don't pass all tests for optimality.Forecasting ; Inflation (Finance)

The Livingston Survey: still useful after all these years

The decisions of households, firms, and government agencies depend on forecasts of the overall economy. Large firms and the federal government often have the resources to hire their own economists to provide forecasts. But households, small firms, and local governments often depend on surveys of forecasters to get their information. In this article, Dean Croushore spotlights the Livingston Survey, which, even after 50 years, still provides useful forecasts of the economy.Forecasting ; Livingston Survey

U.S. coins: forecasting change

Our next article talks about change-as in coins. Every year, the government produces about 70 new coins for every man, woman, and child. But the economy's need for coins can vary from year to year. So how do the U.S. Mint, which makes the coins, and the Federal Reserve, which distributes them, decide how many coins the economy needs? In "U.S. Coins: Forecasting Change," Dean Croushore highlights some facts about coins and describes how demand for change is forecast.Coinage

Frontiers of real-time data analysis

This paper describes the existing research (as of February 2008) on real-time data analysis, divided into five areas: (1) data revisions; (2) forecasting; (3) monetary policy analysis; (4) macroeconomic research; and (5) current analysis of business and financial conditions. In each area, substantial progress has been made in recent years, with researchers gaining insight into the impact of data revisions. In addition, substantial progress has been made in developing better real-time data sets around the world. Still, additional research is needed in key areas, and research to date has uncovered even more fruitful areas worth exploring.Macroeconomics

How useful are forecasts of corporate profits?

If forecasters predict higher earnings for corporations, the stock market will rise. Stock prices will drop with a forecast of lower earnings. But are such forecasts on the money? Dean Croushore uses data from the Survey of Professional Forecasters to check the accuracy of forecasts of corporate profits. The results show that, despite the volatility of corporate profits, the forecasts are rationalCorporations ; Forecasting