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Scattered Fiscal Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Georg Stadtmann

    (Europa-Universität Viadrina and University of Southern Denmark)

  • Christian Pierdzioch

    (Helmut-Schmidt-University)

  • Jan Ruelke

    (WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management)

Abstract

The banking debacle of 2007/2008 and the Greek sovereign debt crisis have witnessed that forecasts of government balances play a major role for how participants in financial markets assess the sustainability of government budget deficits. But how do forecasters form their government-balance forecasts? Do forecasters deliver unbiased forecasts? Our results imply that they do not. On the contrary, using more than 100,000 forecasts of government balances for 38 countries we report strong evidence of forecaster anti-herding, i.e. forecaster scatter their projections around the consensus forecast.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg Stadtmann & Christian Pierdzioch & Jan Ruelke, 2011. "Scattered Fiscal Forecasts," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(3), pages 2558-2568.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-11-00353
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    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2011/Volume31/EB-11-V31-I3-P230.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Marcel Naujoks & Kevin Aretz & Alexander Kerl & Andreas Walter, 2009. "Do German security analysts herd?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 23(1), pages 3-29, March.
    5. Lamont, Owen A., 2002. "Macroeconomic forecasts and microeconomic forecasters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 265-280, July.
    6. Christiane Nickel & Philipp Rother & Jan-Christoph Ruelke, 2011. "Fiscal variables and bond spreads - evidence from Eastern European countries and Turkey," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(17), pages 1291-1307.
    7. 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 714-735, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pierdzioch, Christian & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Stadtmann, Georg, 2013. "Forecasting metal prices: Do forecasters herd?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 150-158.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government balance; Survey data; Forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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