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A Comparison of U.S. Housing Starts Forecasts

Author

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  • Hamid Baghestani

    (Department of Economics, American University of Sharjah)

Abstract

This study examines the Federal Reserve and private forecast accuracy of housing starts. We show that the Federal Reserve (private) forecasts are (generally) unbiased and superior to the random walk benchmark. At the shorter horizon, the Federal Reserve and private forecasts embody distinct predictive information, indicating that one can gain a significant improvement in forecast accuracy by combining the two sets of forecasts. At the longer horizon, our findings support the asymmetric information hypothesis that the Federal Reserve forecasts embody useful predictive information beyond that contained in the private forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamid Baghestani, 2009. "A Comparison of U.S. Housing Starts Forecasts," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2525-2530.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00451
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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    3. Puri, Anil K. & Van Lierop, Johannes, 1988. "Forecasting housing starts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 125-134.
    4. William T. Gavin & Rachel J. Mandal, 2001. "Forecasting inflation and growth: do private forecasts match those of policymakers?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 83(May), pages 11-20.
    5. Christopher A. Sims, 2002. "The Role of Models and Probabilities in the Monetary Policy Process," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(2), pages 1-62.
    6. David H. Romer & Christina D. Romer, 2000. "Federal Reserve Information and the Behavior of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 429-457, June.
    7. Dean Croushore, 1993. "Introducing: the survey of professional forecasters," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Nov, pages 3-15.
    8. Baghestani, Hamid, 2006. "Federal reserve vs. private forecasts of real net exports," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 349-353, June.
    9. Harvey, David & Leybourne, Stephen & Newbold, Paul, 1997. "Testing the equality of prediction mean squared errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 281-291, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Tim Meyer, 2019. "On the Directional Accuracy of United States Housing Starts Forecasts: Evidence from Survey Data," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 457-488, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Greenbook forecasts; Survey of Professional Forecasters; Unbiasedness; Asymmetric information; Forecast combination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

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