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Evaluating the economic forecasts of FOMC members

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  • Sheng, Xuguang (Simon)

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the forecasts of real GDP, inflation and unemployment made by individual members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) for the period 1992–2003. Despite a general tendency for the committee members to underpredict real GDP over the sample period, we find evidence suggesting that the FOMC has a considerable amount of information about output growth, beyond what is known by commercial forecasters. We also document a substantial level of variation in the members’ forecasts, which can be explained in part by the differences in economic conditions between Federal Reserve districts. The members’ heterogeneous forecasts for output growth and inflation contain useful information for explaining their preferred policy settings, beyond that in the Greenbook forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheng, Xuguang (Simon), 2015. "Evaluating the economic forecasts of FOMC members," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 165-175.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:31:y:2015:i:1:p:165-175
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2014.03.001
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    4. Luiz Renato Lima & Lucas Lúcio Godeiro & Mohammed Mohsin, 2021. "Time-Varying Dictionary and the Predictive Power of FED Minutes," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 57(1), pages 149-181, January.
    5. Natsuki Arai, 2016. "Evaluating the Efficiency of the FOMC's New Economic Projections," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(5), pages 1019-1049, August.
    6. Guido Schultefrankenfeld, 2020. "Appropriate monetary policy and forecast disagreement at the FOMC," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 223-255, January.
    7. Alessandro Riboni & Francisco Ruge‐Murcia, 2023. "The Power Of The Federal Reserve Chair," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(2), pages 727-756, May.
    8. Hamza Bennani, 2016. "Measuring Monetary Policy Stress for Fed District Representatives," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(2), pages 156-176, May.
    9. Messina, Jeffrey D. & Sinclair, Tara M. & Stekler, Herman, 2015. "What can we learn from revisions to the Greenbook forecasts?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 54-62.
    10. Ellis, Michael A. & Liu, Dandan, 2016. "FOMC forecasts and monetary policy deliberations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 131-134.
    11. Thomas L. Hogan, 2022. "The calculus of dissent: Bias and diversity in FOMC projections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 105-135, April.
    12. S. Yanki Kalfa & Jaime Marquez, 2019. "FOMC Forecasts: Are They Useful for Understanding Monetary Policy?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, August.
    13. El-Shagi, Makram & Giesen, Sebastian & Jung, Alexander, 2016. "Revisiting the relative forecast performances of Fed staff and private forecasters: A dynamic approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 313-323.
    14. Conrad, Christian & Lahiri, Kajal, 2023. "Heterogeneous expectations among professional forecasters," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-062, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Stekler, Herman & Symington, Hilary, 2016. "Evaluating qualitative forecasts: The FOMC minutes, 2006–2010," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 559-570.
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    18. Amrendra Pandey & Jagadish Shettigar & Amarnath Bose, 2021. "Evaluation of the Inflation Forecasting Process of the Reserve Bank of India: A Text Analysis Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, July.

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