IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/588.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The measurement and behavior of uncertainty: evidence from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters

Author

Listed:
  • Robert W. Rich
  • Joseph Song
  • Joseph Tracy

Abstract

We use matched point and density forecasts of output growth and inflation from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters to derive measures of forecast uncertainty, forecast dispersion, and forecast accuracy. We construct uncertainty measures from aggregate density functions as well as from individual histograms. The uncertainty measures display countercyclical behavior, and there is evidence of increased uncertainty for output growth and inflation since 2007. The results also indicate that uncertainty displays a very weak relationship with forecast dispersion, corroborating the findings of other recent studies indicating that disagreement is not a valid proxy for uncertainty. In addition, we find no correspondence between movements in uncertainty and predictive accuracy, suggesting that time-varying conditional variance estimates may not provide a reliable proxy for uncertainty. Last, using a regression equation that can be interpreted as a (G)ARCH-M-type model, we find limited evidence of linkages between uncertainty and levels of inflation and output growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert W. Rich & Joseph Song & Joseph Tracy, 2012. "The measurement and behavior of uncertainty: evidence from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters," Staff Reports 588, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:588
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr588.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr588.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonello D’Agostino & Kieran Mcquinn & Karl Whelan, 2012. "Are Some Forecasters Really Better Than Others?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(4), pages 715-732, June.
    2. Lahiri, Kajal & Teigland, Christie & Zaporowski, Mark, 1988. "Interest Rates and the Subjective Probability Distribution of Inflation Forecasts," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(2), pages 233-248, May.
    3. Cumby, Robert E & Huizinga, John, 1992. "Testing the Autocorrelation Structure of Disturbances in Ordinary Least Squares and Instrumental Variables Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(1), pages 185-195, January.
    4. Rich, Robert W & Butler, J S, 1998. "Disagreement as a Measure of Uncertainty: A Comment on Bomberger," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 411-419, August.
    5. 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.
    6. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    7. S. Fountas & A. Ioannidis & M. Karanasos, 2004. "Inflation, Inflation Uncertainty and a Common European Monetary Policy," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(2), pages 221-242, March.
    8. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    9. A. Sandmo, 1970. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Saving Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(3), pages 353-360.
    10. Victor Zarnowitz & Louis A. Lambros, 1983. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," NBER Working Papers 1171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Carlos Bowles & Roberta Friz & Veronique Genre & Geoff Kenny & Aidan Meyler & Tuomas Rautanen, 2007. "The ECB survey of professional forecasters (SPF) – A review after eight years’ experience," Occasional Paper Series 59, European Central Bank.
    12. Holland, A Steven, 1995. "Inflation and Uncertainty: Tests for Temporal Ordering," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(3), pages 827-837, August.
    13. Juan Angel Garcia, 2003. "An introduction to the ECB’s survey of professional forecasters," Occasional Paper Series 08, European Central Bank.
    14. Blackburn, Keith, 1999. "Can Stabilisation Policy Reduce Long-Run Growth?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(452), pages 67-77, January.
    15. Giordani, Paolo & Soderlind, Paul, 2003. "Inflation forecast uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1037-1059, December.
    16. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    17. Kajal Lahiri & Xuguang Sheng, 2010. "Measuring forecast uncertainty by disagreement: The missing link," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 514-538.
    18. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    19. Alex Cukierman, 1992. "Central Bank Strategy, Credibility, and Independence: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262031981, December.
    20. Vroman, Susan B, 1989. "Inflation Uncertainty and Contract Duration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(4), pages 677-681, November.
    21. Kevin B. Grier & Mark J. Perry, 2000. "The effects of real and nominal uncertainty on inflation and output growth: some garch-m evidence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 45-58.
    22. 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.
    23. Andrade, P. & Ghysels, E. & Idier, J., 2012. "Tails of Inflation Forecasts and Tales of Monetary Policy," Working papers 407, Banque de France.
    24. 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.
    25. Fountas, Stilianos & Karanasos, Menelaos, 2007. "Inflation, output growth, and nominal and real uncertainty: Empirical evidence for the G7," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 229-250, March.
    26. Carlos Bowles & Roberta Friz & Veronique Genre & Geoff Kenny & Aidan Meyler & Tuomas Rautanen, 2010. "An Evaluation of the Growth and Unemployment Forecasts in the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2010(2), pages 1-28.
    27. Joseph Engelberg & Charles F. Manski & Jared Williams, 2011. "Assessing the temporal variation of macroeconomic forecasts by a panel of changing composition," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 1059-1078, November.
    28. Friedman, Milton, 1977. "Nobel Lecture: Inflation and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 451-472, June.
    29. Davis, George & Kanago, Bryce, 1997. "Contract Duration, Inflation Uncertainty, and the Welfare Effects of Inflation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 237-251, April.
    30. 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.
    31. Kenneth F. Wallis, 2005. "Combining Density and Interval Forecasts: A Modest Proposal," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(s1), pages 983-994, December.
    32. Engle, Robert F & Lilien, David M & Robins, Russell P, 1987. "Estimating Time Varying Risk Premia in the Term Structure: The Arch-M Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 391-407, March.
    33. Zarnowitz, Victor & Lambros, Louis A, 1987. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 591-621, June.
    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. Christian Grimme & Steffen Henzel & Elisabeth Wieland, 2014. "Inflation uncertainty revisited: a proposal for robust measurement," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 1497-1523, December.
    2. Glas, Alexander & Hartmann, Matthias, 2016. "Inflation uncertainty, disagreement and monetary policy: Evidence from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 215-228.
    3. 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.
    4. Robert W. Rich & Joseph Tracy, 2017. "The behavior of uncertainty and disagreement and their roles in economic prediction: a panel analysis," Staff Reports 808, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Zeynel Abidin Ozdemir, 2010. "Dynamics Of Inflation, Output Growth And Their Uncertainty In The Uk: An Empirical Analysis," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 78(6), pages 511-537, December.
    6. Geoff Kenny & Thomas Kostka & Federico Masera, 2015. "Density characteristics and density forecast performance: a panel analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 1203-1231, May.
    7. Pilar Poncela & Eva Senra, 2017. "Measuring uncertainty and assessing its predictive power in the euro area," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 165-182, August.
    8. Kajal Lahiri & Xuguang Sheng, 2010. "Measuring forecast uncertainty by disagreement: The missing link," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 514-538.
    9. Fuest, Angela & Schmidt, Torsten, 2017. "Inflation expectation uncertainty, inflation and the output gap," Ruhr Economic Papers 673, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    10. Ilhan Kilic & Faruk Balli, 2024. "Measuring economic country-specific uncertainty in Türkiye," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 1649-1689, October.
    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. Steffen R. Henzel & Malte Rengel, 2017. "Dimensions Of Macroeconomic Uncertainty: A Common Factor Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 843-877, April.
    13. Apostolos Serletis & Jinan Liu, 2022. "Inflation and economic activity in advanced and emerging economies," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 4196-4223, October.
    14. 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.
    15. Krüger, Fabian & Nolte, Ingmar, 2016. "Disagreement versus uncertainty: Evidence from distribution forecasts," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(S), pages 172-186.
    16. Clements, Michael P., 2018. "Are macroeconomic density forecasts informative?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 181-198.
    17. Fountas, Stilianos & Karanasos, Menelaos, 2007. "Inflation, output growth, and nominal and real uncertainty: Empirical evidence for the G7," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 229-250, March.
    18. Hartmann, Matthias & Roestel, Jan, 2013. "Inflation, output and uncertainty in the era of inflation targeting – A multi-economy view on causal linkages," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 98-112.
    19. Kushal Banik Chowdhury & Kaustav Kanti Sarkar & Srikanta Kundu, 2021. "Nonlinear relationships between inflation, output growth and uncertainty in India: New evidence from a bivariate threshold model," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 469-493, July.
    20. Hartmann, Matthias & Herwartz, Helmut & Ulm, Maren, 2017. "A comparative assessment of alternative ex ante measures of inflation uncertainty," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 76-89.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Uncertainty; European Central Bank; Economic forecasting; Inflation (Finance);
    All these keywords.

    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:fip:fednsr:588. 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: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.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.