(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Inflation Forecast Uncertainty
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/hastef/0384.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inflation Forecast Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Giordani, Paolo

    (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)

  • Soderlind, Paul

    (Dept. of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics)

Abstract

We study the inflation uncertainty reported by individual forecasters in the Survey of Professional Forecasters 1969-2001. Three popular measures of uncertainty built from survey data are analyzed in the context of models for forecasting and asset pricing, and improved estimation methods are suggested. Popular time series models are evaluated for their ability to reproduce survey measures of uncertainty. The results show that disagreement is a better proxy of inflation uncertainty than what previous literature has indicated, and that forecasters underestimate inflation uncertainty. We obtain similar results for output growth uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Giordani, Paolo & Soderlind, Paul, 2000. "Inflation Forecast Uncertainty," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 384, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 06 Nov 2001.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swopec.hhs.se/hastef/papers/hastef0384.pdf
    File Function: Complete Rendering
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Evans, Martin & Wachtel, Paul, 1993. "Inflation Regimes and the," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 25(3), pages 475-511, August.
    2. Croushore, Dean & Stark, Tom, 2001. "A real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 111-130, November.
    3. 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.
    4. Figlewski, Stephen, 1983. "Optimal Price Forecasting Using Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(1), pages 13-21, February.
    5. Francis X. Diebold & Anthony S. Tay & Kenneth F. Wallis, 1997. "Evaluating Density Forecasts of Inflation: The Survey of Professional Forecasters," NBER Working Papers 6228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. 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.
    7. Stark, Tom & Croushore, Dean, 2002. "Forecasting with a real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 507-531, December.
    8. David Laster & Paul Bennett & In Sun Geoum, 1999. "Rational Bias in Macroeconomic Forecasts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 293-318.
    9. Christoffersen, Peter F, 1998. "Evaluating Interval Forecasts," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 841-862, November.
    10. Zakoian, Jean-Michel, 1994. "Threshold heteroskedastic models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 931-955, September.
    11. Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi & Runkle, David E, 1993. "On the Relation between the Expected Value and the Volatility of the Nominal Excess Return on Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1779-1801, December.
    12. Bomberger, William A, 1996. "Disagreement as a Measure of Uncertainty," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(3), pages 381-392, August.
    13. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    14. Victor Zarnowitz & Louis A. Lambros, 1983. "Consensus and Uncertainty in Economic Prediction," NBER Working Papers 1171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Bomberger, William A & Frazer, William J, Jr, 1981. "Interest Rates, Uncertainty and the Livingston Data," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(3), pages 661-675, June.
    16. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Divergence of Opinion in Complete Markets: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 309-317, March.
    17. Martin Evans & Paul Wachtel, 1993. "Inflation regimes and the sources of inflation uncertainty," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 475-520.
    18. Victor Zarnowitz, 1967. "An Appraisal of Short-Term Economic Forecasts," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number zarn67-1.
    19. Makin, John H, 1982. "Anticipated Money, Inflation Uncertainty and Real Economic Activity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(1), pages 126-134, February.
    20. Dean Croushore, 1993. "Introducing: the survey of professional forecasters," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Nov, pages 3-15.
    21. Mullineaux, Donald J, 1980. "Unemployment, Industrial Production, and Inflation Uncertainty in the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(2), pages 163-169, May.
    22. 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.
    23. Lloyd B. Thomas, 1999. "Survey Measures of Expected U.S. Inflation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 125-144, Fall.
    24. Levi, Maurice D & Makin, John H, 1980. "Inflation Uncertainty and the Phillips Curve: Some Empirical Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 1022-1027, December.
    25. Roy Batchelor & Pami Dua, 1995. "Forecaster Diversity and the Benefits of Combining Forecasts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 68-75, January.
    26. Holland, A Steven, 1986. "Wage Indexation and the Effect of Inflation Uncertainty on Employment:An Empirical Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 235-243, March.
    27. Lahiri, Kajal & Teigland, Christie, 1987. "On the normality of probability distributions of inflation and GNP forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 269-279.
    28. Kajal Lahiri & J George Wang, 2006. "Subjective Probability Forecasts for Recessions," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 26-37, April.
    29. Holland, A Steven, 1993. "Uncertain Effects of Money and the Link between the Inflation Rate and Inflation Uncertainty," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(1), pages 39-51, January.
    30. Richard H. Thaler, 2000. "From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 133-141, Winter.
    31. 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.
    32. Ratti, Ronald A, 1985. "The Effects of Inflation Surprises and Uncertainty on Real Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(2), pages 309-314, May.
    33. Makin, John H, 1983. "Real Interest, Money Surprises, Anticipated Inflation and Fiscal Deficits," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 374-384, August.
    34. 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.
    35. Melvin, Michael, 1982. "Expected Inflation, Taxation, and Interest Rates: The Delusion of Fiscal Illusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 841-845, September.
    36. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    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. Kajal Lahiri & Fushang Liu, 2006. "ARCH Models for Multi-period Forecast Uncertainty: A Reality Check Using a Panel of Density Forecasts," Advances in Econometrics, in: Econometric Analysis of Financial and Economic Time Series, pages 321-363, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    2. Clements, Michael P., 2006. "Internal consistency of survey respondentsíforecasts: Evidence based on the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Economic Research Papers 269742, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    3. 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.
    4. Kajal Lahiri & Fushang Liu, 2006. "Modelling multi‐period inflation uncertainty using a panel of density forecasts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 1199-1219, December.
    5. Clements, Michael P., 2010. "Explanations of the inconsistencies in survey respondents' forecasts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 536-549, May.
    6. Ran TAO & Zheng-Zheng LI & Xiao-Lin LI & Chi-Wei SU, 2018. "A Reexamination of Friedman-Ball’s Hypothesis in Slovakia - Evidence from Wavelet Analysis," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(4), pages 41-54, December.
    7. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis & Justin Wolfers, 2004. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 209-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Rich, R W & Raymond, J E & Butler, J S, 1992. "The Relationship between Forecast Dispersion and Forecast Uncertainty: Evidence from a Survey Data-ARCH Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(2), pages 131-148, April-Jun.
    9. 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.
    10. Michael P. Clements, 2014. "US Inflation Expectations and Heterogeneous Loss Functions, 1968–2010," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 1-14, January.
    11. 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.
    12. Harvey, David I. & Newbold, Paul, 2003. "The non-normality of some macroeconomic forecast errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 635-653.
    13. 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.
    14. Conrad, Christian & Hartmann, Matthias, 2014. "Cross-sectional evidence on the relation between monetary policy, macroeconomic conditions and low-frequency inflation uncertainty," Working Papers 0574, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    15. Clements, Michael P., 2008. "Rounding of probability forecasts : The SPF forecast probabilities of negative output growth," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 869, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    16. Tsyplakov, Alexander, 2010. "The links between inflation and inflation uncertainty at the longer horizon," MPRA Paper 26908, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Grier, Kevin B. & Perry, Mark J., 1998. "On inflation and inflation uncertainty in the G7 countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 671-689, August.
    18. Croushore Dean, 2010. "An Evaluation of Inflation Forecasts from Surveys Using Real-Time Data," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-32, May.
    19. da Silva Filho, Tito Nícias Teixeira, 2005. "Is there too much certainty when measuring uncertainty," MPRA Paper 16383, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Clements, Michael P., 2008. "Consensus and uncertainty: Using forecast probabilities of output declines," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 76-86.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey data; Survey of Professional Forecasters; GDP growth; VAR; T-GARCH;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:hhs:hastef:0384. 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: Helena Lundin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erhhsse.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.