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Macroeconomics Forecasts and Microeconomic Forecasters

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Author Info
Owen Lamont
Abstract

In the presence of principal-agent problems, published macroeconomic forecasts by professional economists may not measure expectations. Forecasters may use their forecasts in order to manipulate beliefs about their ability. I test a cross-sectional implication of models of reputation and information-revelation. I find that as forecasters become older and more established, they produce more radical forecasts. Since these more radical forecasts are in general less accurate, ex post forecast accuracy grows significantly worse as forecasters become older and more established. These findings indicate that reputational factors are at work in professional macroeconomic forecasts.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5284.

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Date of creation: Oct 1995
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5284

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Froot, Kenneth A, 1989. " New Hope for the Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(2), pages 283-305, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Banerjee, Abhijit V, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Keane, Michael P & Runkle, David E, 1990. "Testing the Rationality of Price Forecasts: New Evidence from Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 714-35, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Zarnowitz, Victor, 1985. "Rational Expectations and Macroeconomic Forecasts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(4), pages 293-311, October.
  5. Bryan, Michael F & Gavin, William T, 1986. "Models of Inflation Expectations Formation: A Comparison of Household and Economist Forecasts: A Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(4), pages 539-44, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Ito, Takatoshi, 1990. "Foreign Exchange Rate Expectations: Micro Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 434-49, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Lakonishok, Josef & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1992. "The impact of institutional trading on stock prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 23-43, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "Specification Tests in Econometrics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1251-71, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-79, June.
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  10. Stephen K. McNees, 1989. "Why do forecasts differ?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 42-54.
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  1. Evan F. Koenig & Sheila Dolmas & Jeremy Piger, 2000. "The use and abuse of "real-time" data in economic forecasting," International Finance Discussion Papers 684, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Laurence Ball & Dean Croushore, 1998. "Expectations and the effects of monetary policy," Working Papers 98-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Tom Stark, 1997. "Macroeconomic forecasts and microeconomic forecasters in the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Working Papers 97-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
  4. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1998. "Career Concerns of Mutual Fund Managers," NBER Working Papers 6394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Marco Ottaviani & Peter Norman Sorensen, 2001. "The Strategy of Professional Forecasting," Discussion Papers 01-09, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Gerberding, Christina, 2001. "The information content of survey data on expected price developments for monetary policy," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2001,09, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  7. David Laster & Paul Bennett & In Sun Geoum, 1996. "Rational bias in macroeconomic forecasts," Research Paper 9617, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
  8. Allan Timmermann & Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer, 2004. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Econometric Society 2004 North American Summer Meetings 601, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Michael Groemling, 2005. "Konjunkturprognosen – Verfahren, Erfolgskontrolle und Prognosefehler," Departmental Discussion Papers 123, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  10. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2000. "Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 429-457, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Eric Ghysels & Jonathan H. Wright, 2006. "Forecasting professional forecasters," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-10, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  12. Giampiero M. Gallo & Clive W.J. Granger & Yongil Jeon, 2001. "Copycats and Common Swings: the Impact of the Use of Forecasts in Information Sets," Econometrics Working Papers Archive wp2001_01, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica "G. Parenti". [Downloadable!]
  13. Scott Schuh, 2001. "An evaluation of recent macroeconomic forecast errors," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 35-56. [Downloadable!]
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