IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/19055.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firms' Subjective Uncertainty and Forecast Errors

Author

Listed:
  • MORIKAWA Masayuki

Abstract

Using original survey data linked with the financial statements of Japanese listed firms, this study presents an ex post evaluation of firms' ex ante subjective uncertainty. Ex ante forecast uncertainty in terms of sales and employment growth is derived from firms' subjective confidence interval around their point forecasts. Ex post forecast error is calculated as the deviation of the realized figures from the point forecasts. The results indicate that ex ante subjective uncertainty has a positive association with realized absolute forecast error. The subjective confidence interval for a firm's own business forecast, in comparison with that for macroeconomic variables, is reliable as a measure of uncertainty. These findings indicate that the subjective probability distribution of business outlook captured by firm surveys contains valuable information for measuring economic uncertainty at the micro-level.

Suggested Citation

  • MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2019. "Firms' Subjective Uncertainty and Forecast Errors," Discussion papers 19055, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:19055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/19e055.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Itzhak Ben-David & Elyas Fermand & Camelia M. Kuhnen & Geng Li, 2018. "Expectations Uncertainty and Household Economic Behavior," NBER Working Papers 25336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Geoff Kenny & Thomas Kostka & Federico Masera, 2014. "How Informative are the Subjective Density Forecasts of Macroeconomists?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 163-185, April.
    4. Meinen, Philipp & Roehe, Oke, 2017. "On measuring uncertainty and its impact on investment: Cross-country evidence from the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 161-179.
    5. Altig, David & Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nicholas & Davis, Steven J. & Meyer, Brent & Parker, Nicholas, 2022. "Surveying business uncertainty," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 282-303.
    6. Masayuki Morikawa, 2016. "What Types of Policy Uncertainties Matter for Business?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 527-540, December.
    7. Charles F. Manski, 2018. "Survey Measurement of Probabilistic Macroeconomic Expectations: Progress and Promise," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 411-471.
    8. Luigi Guiso & Giuseppe Parigi, 1999. "Investment and Demand Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 185-227.
    9. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2016. "Business uncertainty and investment: Evidence from Japanese companies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 224-236.
    10. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2019. "Uncertainty over production forecasts: An empirical analysis using monthly quantitative survey data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 163-179.
    11. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2018. "Measuring Firm-level Uncertainty: New evidence from a business outlook survey," Discussion papers 18030, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. Bontempi, Maria Elena & Golinelli, Roberto & Parigi, Giuseppe, 2010. "Why demand uncertainty curbs investment: Evidence from a panel of Italian manufacturing firms," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 218-238, March.
    13. Engelberg, Joseph & Manski, Charles F. & Williams, Jared, 2009. "Comparing the Point Predictions and Subjective Probability Distributions of Professional Forecasters," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27, pages 30-41.
    14. Massenot, Baptiste & Pettinicchi, Yuri, 2018. "Can firms see into the future? Survey evidence from Germany," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 66-79.
    15. Gianna Boero & Jeremy Smith & Kenneth F. Wallis, 2008. "Uncertainty and Disagreement in Economic Prediction: The Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1107-1127, July.
    16. Clements, Michael P., 2008. "Consensus and uncertainty: Using forecast probabilities of output declines," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 76-86.
    17. Michael P. Clements, 2014. "Forecast Uncertainty- Ex Ante and Ex Post : U.S. Inflation and Output Growth," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 206-216, April.
    18. Catherine Buffington & Andrew Hennessy & Scott Ohlmacher, 2018. "The Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS): Collection and Processing," Working Papers 18-51, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    19. Robert Rich & Joseph Tracy, 2010. "The Relationships among Expected Inflation, Disagreement, and Uncertainty: Evidence from Matched Point and Density Forecasts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 200-207, February.
    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. Bachmann, Rüdiger, 2019. "Comments on “Monetary policy announcements and expectations: Evidence from German firms”," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 64-68.
    2. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2019. "Uncertainty over production forecasts: An empirical analysis using monthly quantitative survey data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 163-179.
    3. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2022. "Firms' Knightian Uncertainty during the COVID-19 Crisis," Discussion papers 22089, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. MORIKAWA Masayuki, 2021. "Uncertainty of Firms' Economic Outlook During the COVID-19 Crisis," Discussion papers 21042, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2016. "Business uncertainty and investment: Evidence from Japanese companies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 224-236.
    6. Glas, Alexander, 2020. "Five dimensions of the uncertainty–disagreement linkage," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 607-627.
    7. Krüger, Fabian & Pavlova, Lora, 2024. "Quantifying subjective uncertainty in survey expectations," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 796-810.
    8. Masayuki Morikawa, 2016. "What Types of Policy Uncertainties Matter for Business?," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 527-540, December.
    9. Ilhan Kilic & Faruk Balli, 2024. "Measuring economic country-specific uncertainty in Türkiye," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 1649-1689, October.
    10. Ruediger Bachmann & Kai Carstensen & Stefan Lautenbacher & Martin Schneider, 2021. "Uncertainty and Change: Survey Evidence of Firms's Subjective Beliefs," CESifo Working Paper Series 9394, CESifo.
    11. Robert Rich & Joseph Tracy, 2021. "A Closer Look at the Behavior of Uncertainty and Disagreement: Micro Evidence from the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(1), pages 233-253, February.
    12. Joshua Abel & Robert Rich & Joseph Song & Joseph Tracy, 2016. "The Measurement and Behavior of Uncertainty: Evidence from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 533-550, April.
    13. Kang, Wensheng & Lee, Kiseok & Ratti, Ronald A., 2014. "Economic policy uncertainty and firm-level investment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 42-53.
    14. Fiori, Giuseppe & Scoccianti, Filippo, 2023. "The economic effects of firm-level uncertainty: Evidence using subjective expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 92-105.
    15. Clements, Michael P., 2021. "Do survey joiners and leavers differ from regular participants? The US SPF GDP growth and inflation forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 634-646.
    16. Dovern, Jonas, 2024. "Eliciting expectation uncertainty from private households," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 113-123.
    17. Joshy Easaw & Christian Grimme, 2021. "The Impact of Aggregate Uncertainty on Firm-Level Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 8934, CESifo.
    18. Clements, Michael P, 2012. "Subjective and Ex Post Forecast Uncertainty : US Inflation and Output Growth," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 995, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    19. Krüger, Fabian & Pavlova, Lora, 2019. "Quantifying subjective oncertainty in survey expectations," Working Papers 0664, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    20. Binding, Garret & Dibiasi, Andreas, 2017. "Exchange rate uncertainty and firm investment plans evidence from Swiss survey data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-27.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:eti:dpaper:19055. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.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.