IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jae/japmet/v24y2009i4p583-606.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the prudence of economic forecasts in the EU

Author

Listed:
  • G. A. Christodoulakis

    (Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK)

  • E. C. Mamatzakis

    (Department of Economics, University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece)

Abstract

We estimate the EU Commission loss preferences for major economic forecasts of 12 Member States. Based on a recently proposed method by Elliott, Komunjer and Timmermann (2005) the paper provides evidence of asymmetries in the underlying forecast loss preference of the Commission that tend to vary across Member States. In some cases, our results show that EU forecasts tend to display a rather optimistic picture for main economic variables, e.g. government balance, thus allowing a certain degree of leeway in the fiscal adjustment path towards the medium-term objective of 'close to balance' or 'in surplus' of the recently revised Stability and Growth Pact. Over the period of our sample, 1970-2004, this apparent asymmetry in the underlying loss preferences tends to deter prudent advice over economic policy. Lastly, we provide an analysis on the trade-off between loss and distribution asymmetries, for which simulation results show that the testing method is robust in the presence of skewness. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • G. A. Christodoulakis & E. C. Mamatzakis, 2009. "Assessing the prudence of economic forecasts in the EU," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 583-606.
    • Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:24:y:2009:i:4:p:583-606
    DOI: 10.1002/jae.1045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jae.1045
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://qed.econ.queensu.ca:80/jae/2009-v24.4/
    File Function: Supporting data files and programs
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jae.1045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Filip Keereman, 1999. "The track record of the Commission forecasts," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 137, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    2. Goetzmann, William N. & Jorion, Philippe, 1999. "Re-Emerging Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann & Ivana Komunjer, 2005. "Estimation and Testing of Forecast Rationality under Flexible Loss," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1107-1125.
    4. Christodoulakis, George A., 2005. "Financial forecasts in the presence of asymmetric loss aversion, skewness and excess kurtosis," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 227-233, December.
    5. Michael Artis & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2001. "Fiscal forecasting: The track record of the IMF, OECD and EC," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 4(1), pages 20-36.
    6. Donald, Stephen G & Newey, Whitney K, 2001. "Choosing the Number of Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1161-1191, September.
    7. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B, 1999. "Non-falsified Expectations and General Equilibrium Asset Pricing: The Power of the Peso," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(458), pages 607-635, October.
    8. Veronesi, Pietro, 2004. "The Peso problem hypothesis and stock market returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 707-725, January.
    9. Philippe Jorion & William N. Goetzmann, 1999. "Global Stock Markets in the Twentieth Century," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 953-980, June.
    10. Rietz, Thomas A., 1988. "The equity risk premium a solution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 117-131, July.
    11. Batchelor, Roy & Peel, David A., 1998. "Rationality testing under asymmetric loss," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 49-54, October.
    12. Mr. Michael J. Artis, 1996. "How Accurate Are the Imf's Short-Term Forecasts? Another Examination of the World Economic Outlook," IMF Working Papers 1996/089, International Monetary Fund.
    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. George A. Christodoulakis & Emmanuel C. Mamatzakis, 2008. "An assessment of the EU growth forecasts under asymmetric preferences," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(6), pages 483-492.
    2. Veronesi, Pietro, 2004. "The Peso problem hypothesis and stock market returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 707-725, January.
    3. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2023. "Assessing the World Bank’s growth forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 64-84.
    4. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann, 2016. "Economic Forecasting," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10740.
    5. Anatolyev, Stanislav, 2009. "Dynamic modeling under linear-exponential loss," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 82-89, January.
    6. Pierdzioch, Christian & Risse, Marian & Rohloff, Sebastian, 2014. "The international business cycle and gold-price fluctuations," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 292-305.
    7. Meenagh, David & Minford, Patrick & Peel, David, 2007. "Simulating stock returns under switching regimes - A new test of market efficiency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 235-239, February.
    8. Jerry Tsai & Jessica A. Wachter, 2015. "Disaster Risk and its Implications for Asset Pricing," NBER Working Papers 20926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Zidong An & Joao Tovar Jalles, 2020. "On the performance of US fiscal forecasts: government vs. private information," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 367-391, June.
    10. George M. Constantinides, 2006. "Market Organization And The Prices Of Financial Assets," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(s1), pages 1-23, September.
    11. Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Evaluating German business cycle forecasts under an asymmetric loss function," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2010(1), pages 1-18.
    12. Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2014. "Government Forecasts of Budget Balances Under Asymmetric Loss: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100317, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Geoffrey J. Warren, 2008. "Implications for Asset Pricing Puzzles of a Roll‐over Assumption for the Risk‐Free Asset," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 8(3‐4), pages 125-157, September.
    14. Berkman, Henk & Jacobsen, Ben & Lee, John B., 2011. "Time-varying rare disaster risk and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 313-332, August.
    15. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Assessing macroeconomic forecasts for Japan under an asymmetric loss function," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 233-242.
    16. Emmanuel C. Mamatzakis & Mike G. Tsionas, 2020. "Revealing forecaster's preferences: A Bayesian multivariate loss function approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 412-437, April.
    17. Giovannelli, Alessandro & Pericoli, Filippo Maria, 2020. "Are GDP forecasts optimal? Evidence on European countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 963-973.
    18. Marcella Niglio, 2007. "Multi-step forecasts from threshold ARMA models using asymmetric loss functions," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 16(3), pages 395-410, November.
    19. Keiichi Morimoto & Shiba Suzuki, 2022. "Ambiguity in a pandemic recession, asset prices, and lockdown policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(5), pages 1039-1070, October.
    20. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Asymmetric loss and rationality of Chinese renminbi forecasts: An implication for the trade between China and the US," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 116-127.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Assessing the prudence of economic forecasts in the EU (Journal of Applied Econometrics 2009) in ReplicationWiki

    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:jae:japmet:v:24:y:2009:i:4:p:583-606. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.interscience.wiley.com/jpages/0883-7252/ .

    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.