IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jagaec/v52y2020i4p545-561_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Private Forecasters Beat the USDA? Analysis of Relative Accuracy of Crop Acreage and Production Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Isengildina-Massa, Olga
  • Karali, Berna
  • Irwin, Scott H.

Abstract

This study examines the accuracy of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) crop Acreage and Production forecasts for corn, soybeans, and winter wheat relative to their private counterparts over 1970–2019. Our main findings suggest that USDA forecasts often had significantly smaller errors than their private counterparts. The accuracy of both USDA and private forecasts has improved over time, but the accuracy of USDA forecasts has improved more than that of private forecasts, maintaining the USDA’s relative accuracy advantage. The accuracy advantage of Prospective Plantings and Acreage reports highlights the importance of survey-based approaches used for these forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Isengildina-Massa, Olga & Karali, Berna & Irwin, Scott H., 2020. "Can Private Forecasters Beat the USDA? Analysis of Relative Accuracy of Crop Acreage and Production Forecasts," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 545-561, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jagaec:v:52:y:2020:i:4:p:545-561_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1074070820000188/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Goyal, Raghav & Adjemian, Michael K., 2021. "The 2019 government shutdown increased uncertainty in major agricultural commodity markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Yang, Yao & Karali, Berna, 2022. "The Role of USDA Reports on Extreme Volatility Coexceedances: An Application to the Soybean Complex," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322104, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Olga Isengildina Massa & Berna Karali & Scott H. Irwin, 2024. "What do we know about the value and market impact of the US Department of Agriculture reports?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(2), pages 698-736, June.
    4. Etienne, Xiaoli L. & Farhangdoost, Sara & Hoffman, Linwood A. & Adam, Brian D., 2023. "Forecasting the U.S. season-average farm price of corn: Derivation of an alternative futures-based forecasting model," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    5. Kexin Ding & Ani L. Katchova, 2024. "Testing the optimality of USDA's WASDE forecasts under unknown loss," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(4), pages 846-865, October.
    6. Capitani, Daniel H D & Mattos, Fabio L. & Cruz, Jose Cesar & Silva, Renato Moraes & Franco Da Silveira, Rodrigo Lanna, 2024. "The Reaction Of Corn Futures Prices To U.S. And Brazilian Crop Reports," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 343571, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jagaec:v:52:y:2020:i:4:p:545-561_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/aae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.