IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/99051.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Examining the Performance of FOMC Inflation Forecasts

Author

Abstract

Calendar-year inflation forecasts from Federal Open Market Committee meeting participants typically start near 2% and then are revised in response to incoming data. Before the pandemic when actual inflation was mostly below 2%, participants consistently lowered their forecasts over time. From 2021 onward when inflation surged to 40-year highs, participants consistently raised their forecasts over time. In both periods, cumulative forecast revisions help predict the size of subsequent forecast errors. This implies that the typical inflation forecast was slow to adjust to new information that could have improved forecast accuracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamza Abdelrahman & Kevin J. Lansing & Luiz E. Oliveira, 2024. "Examining the Performance of FOMC Inflation Forecasts," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2024(29), pages 1-6, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:99051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/el2024-29.pdf
    File Function: Full text - article PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2644-2678, August.
    2. Kevin J. Lansing, 2022. "Untangling Persistent versus Transitory Shocks to Inflation," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2022(13), pages 1-05, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    2. Joshy Easaw & Roberto Golinelli, 2022. "Professionals Inflation Forecasts: The Two Dimensions Of Forecaster Inattentiveness [“Sectoral and aggregate inflation dynamics in the euro area”]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 701-720.
    3. Müller, Karsten, 2020. "German forecasters' narratives: How informative are German business cycle forecast reports?," Working Papers 23, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2018. "Forward Guidance without Common Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2477-2512, September.
    5. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Saten Kumar, 2018. "How Do Firms Form Their Expectations? New Survey Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2671-2713, September.
    6. Dräger, Lena & Lamla, Michael J. & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2020. "The Hidden Heterogeneity of Inflation and Interest Rate Expectations: The Role of Preferences," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-666, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, revised Feb 2023.
    7. Benjamin Born & Francesco D’Ascanio & Gernot J. Müller & Johannes Pfeifer, 2024. "Mr. Keynes Meets the Classics: Government Spending and the Real Exchange Rate," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(5), pages 1642-1683.
    8. Juan Angel Garcia & Sebastian Werner, 2018. "Inflation News and Euro Area Inflation Expectations," IMF Working Papers 2018/167, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Crump, Richard K. & Eusepi, Stefano & Tambalotti, Andrea & Topa, Giorgio, 2022. "Subjective intertemporal substitution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 118-133.
    10. Chang, Andrew C. & Hanson, Tyler J., 2016. "The accuracy of forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 23-43.
    11. Atahan Afsar; José Elías Gallegos; Richard Jaimes; Edgar Silgado Gómez & José Elías Gallegos & Richard Jaimes & Edgar Silgado Gómez, "undated". "Reconciling Empirics and Theory: The Behavioral Hybrid New Keynesian Model," Vniversitas Económica 18560, Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá.
    12. Chen, Cheng & Senga, Tatsuro & Sun, Chang & Zhang, Hongyong, 2023. "Uncertainty, imperfect information, and expectation formation over the firm’s life cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 60-77.
    13. Born, Benjamin & Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot J., 2023. "On FIRE, news, and expectations," Working Papers 42, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    14. Fatemeh Mokhtarzadeh & Luba Petersen, 2021. "Coordinating expectations through central bank projections," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(3), pages 883-918, September.
    15. Theresa Kuchler & Basit Zafar, 2019. "Personal Experiences and Expectations about Aggregate Outcomes," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 74(5), pages 2491-2542, October.
    16. Mathieu Pedemonte & Hiroshi Toma & Esteban Verdugo, 2023. "Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Inflation Expectations: The Role of Individual Experience," Working Papers 23-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    17. Elizabeth Bersson & Patrick Hürtgen & Matthias Paustian, 2024. "Expectations Formation, Sticky Prices, and the ZLB," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(2-3), pages 365-393, March.
    18. Martin Geiger & Johann Scharler, 2021. "How Do People Interpret Macroeconomic Shocks? Evidence from U.S. Survey Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(4), pages 813-843, June.
    19. Gabriel Arce‐Alfaro & Boris Blagov, 2023. "Monetary Policy Uncertainty and Inflation Expectations," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 70-94, February.

    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:fip:fedfel:99051. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    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.