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Economic and financial forecasts are important for business planning and government policy but are notoriously challenging. We take advantage of recent advances in individual and group judgement, and a data set of economic and financial forecasts compiled over 25 years, consisting of multiple individual and institutional estimates, to test the claim that nominal groups will make more accurate economic and financial forecast than individuals. We validate the forecasts using the subsequent published (real) outcomes, explore the performance of nominal groups against institutions, identify potential superforecasters and discuss the benefits of implementing structured judgment techniques to improve economic and financial forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply a soft computing method to generate country-specific economic sentiment indicators that provide estimates of year-on-year GDP growth rates for 19 European economies. First, genetic programming is used to evolve business and consumer economic expectations to derive sentiment indicators for each country. To assess the performance of the proposed indicators, we first design a nowcasting experiment in which we recursively generate estimates of GDP at the end of each quarter, using the latest business and consumer survey data available. Second, we design a forecasting exercise in which we iteratively re-compute the sentiment indicators in each out-of-sample period. When evaluating the accuracy of the predictions obtained for different forecast horizons, we find that the evolved sentiment indicators outperform the time-series models used as a benchmark. These results show the potential of the proposed approach for prediction purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier research on chief financial officer (CFO) turnover considered whether one of detailed regulatory findings, such as restatements, affected the likelihood of CFO turnover. However, since the passing of Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX), the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) has revised the regulatory approach it uses. It now investigates companies on a more frequent basis and using Comment Letters (CLs) regularly asks registrants to explain disclosure practice with a view to possibly requiring enhanced or revised disclosures. In this new proactive environment, some registrants may repeatedly receive CLs asking questions about multiple disclosure issues. This research uses a dynamic hazard model specification to investigate whether through time CFO turnover increases as the registrants accumulate more CLs. In addition to CL frequency, a measure of the severity of SEC CLs is introduced to see if it moderates the effect of frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Survey of Primary Dealers (SPD) of the New York Federal Reserve. It states that the survey is produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before the meeting of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). It mentions that the SPD focuses on expectations for monetary policy and economic outlook including inflation and gross domestic product (GDP).

Summary: The paper proposes a modelling framework and evaluation procedure to judge the usefulness of realtime data sets incorporating past data vintages and survey expectations in forecasting. The analysis is based on 'metamodels' obtained by using model averaging techniques and judged by various statistical and economic criteria, including a novel criterion based on a fair bet. Analysing US output data over 1968, quarter 4–2015, quarter 1, we find that both elements of the realtime data are useful with their contributions varying over time. Revisions data are particularly valuable for point and density forecasts of growth but survey expectations are important in forecasting rare recessionary events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economic forecasting with commentary on the paper "Models of Inflation Expectations Formation: A Comparison of Household and Economist Forecasts" by Edward M. Gramlich. Gramlich portrays two survey measures of inflation expectations as biased and inefficient but the author claims that the results he came to were a product of a misspecified model. He corrects the error and finds that the Michigan survey of household inflation expectations actually passes the standard testing for unbiasedness and inefficiency.

This article presents estimates of ex ante real rates of interest in the European Economic Community (EEC) countries and in the United States from 1973 to 1982. The author notes that estimating real ex ante interest rates is important because of the implications they have on economic policy and analysis; however, these estimations are often difficult to conduct due to problems associated with the observation of inflation. The author presents a model designed to calculate these estimations and discusses the methodology used in its creation. The author specifically addresses how inflationary expectations were accounted for.

The article focuses on empirical methodologies of expected inflation in macroeconomic relations, particularly contrasting survey and rational data sets. An alternative procedure for evaluating the Livingston survey of professional economists is discussed, generating an expectations series which incorporates the rational expectations hypothesis criteria. The series is then compared with the data of the Livingston survey and evaluated concerning forecast errors and nominal interest rate shift explanations.

The article presents information on the results of a survey of marketing professionals conducted in late spring of 1980, on their expectations for the near future. A majority believed they would face high inflation throughout the 1980s and rejected the idea of wage or price controls. A trend away from customization of products and conspicuous consumption was expected, yet an increasing demand for high-quality, premium branded products was also predicted. Most assumed that credit would be tightened and successful products would become less common, while the importance of advertising would rise.

This paper introduces a new method to measure the unexpected component of dividend announcements. While measures used previously were based on various arbitrary models of dividend expectations, our suggested method compares the reaction of stock and option prices to dividend announcements. Our measure is compared to commonly used model-based measures, to a Box-Jenkins time-series- based measure, and to a Value-Line Investor Survey-based measure of dividend surprises. The new measure is more highly correlated with the market's reaction to the announcements than are alternative measures of dividend surprises. The new measure is also shown to be insensitive to the extent to which the options used to identify unexpected dividend announcements are in- or out-of-the-money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR) approach has proven to be a very useful approach to analyse interactions in the global macroeconomy and other data networks where both the cross-section and the time dimensions are large. This paper surveys the latest developments in the GVAR modelling, examining both the theoretical foundations of the approach and its numerous empirical applications. We provide a synthesis of existing literature and highlight areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of data uncertainty on real-time decision-making can be reduced by predicting data revisions to U.S. GDP growth. We show that survey forecasts efficiently predict the revision implicit in the second estimate of GDP growth, but that forecasting models incorporating monthly economic indicators and daily equity returns provide superior forecasts of the data revision implied by the release of the third estimate. We use forecasting models to measure the impact of surprises in GDP announcements on equity markets, and to analyze the effects of anticipated future revisions on announcement-day returns. We show that the publication of better than expected third-release GDP figures provides a boost to equity markets, and if future upward revisions are expected, the effects are enhanced during recessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper finds that participants in the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters have submitted forecasts that are consistent with a (mostly forward-looking) empirical version of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve for the euro area. The estimation technique takes advantage of the panel nature of the Survey of Professional Forecasters' dataset to exploit both its time series and cross-section dimensions, and to control for unobservable individual heterogeneity across forecasters. The estimation results suggest that euro-area inflation forecasts have reacted less to unemployment forecasts after the start of the financial crisis but another cost measure (energy inflation) remains significant. This finding is consistent with a flatter Phillips Curve in the euro area after 2007. However, the reasons suggested by the International Monetary Fund for this finding, namely a better anchoring of inflation expectations and increases in structural unemployment do not seem to find support in the survey data. Instead, the expectations for compensation per employee submitted by professional forecasters are consistent with the existence of downward real-wage rigidities in euro-area labour markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to take a forecasting approach to examine the relationship between the US birth rate, marriage rate, and economic conditions (measured by both realized unemployment and expected unemployment). The expectation data come from the Michigan Surveys of Consumers. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing monthly data, the authors first specify a univariate and three augmented autoregressive integrated moving average forecasting models for 1975-2001. Second, the authors use recursive estimation to generate multi-period forecasts of the birth rate for 2002-2008. Third, the authors employ standard evaluation methods to compare the predictive information content of the forecasts. Findings – First, the birth rate is pro-cyclical. Second, the marriage rate contains useful predictive information for the birth rate. Third, controlling for past information in the birth and marriage rates, both realized and expected unemployment embody useful information for predicting the birth rate. Fourth, expected unemployment is a more informative indicator than realized unemployment. Practical implications – The finding that the birth rate is pro-cyclical emphasizes the importance of economic stability in promoting childbearing, and the authors suggest counter-cyclical macroeconomic policy to shield families from major shocks. A stable economy, and especially one where families are optimistic about the future, promotes childbearing. The results also empower policymakers to analyze systematically the impact of changes to the structure of marriage on childbearing. Originality/value – This appears to be the first study that utilizes a forecasting approach to better understand the complex relationships between childbearing, marriage, and macroeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The understanding of house price expectations formation is quite limited in the housing literature. This is the first article to rigorously test the rationality of expectations of house price change using survey data. Using a panel data set of the Wall Street Journal economic forecasting survey from 2007 through 2012, I test for unbiasedness and efficiency by implementing the econometric methodology proposed in Davies and Lahiri (1995) in the setting of a three-dimensional panel data set. I find that, after controlling for aggregate shocks, nine of the 47 forecasters have statistically significant biases, and their biases are all negative, indicating that they persistently predict too high of a change in house prices. The hypothesis of efficiency cannot be rejected, suggesting lack of evidence for inefficient use of information. When the year 2012 is excluded, the unbiasedness test shows that 25 of the 47 forecasters systematically overpredicted house price changes. Again, the hypothesis of efficiency cannot be rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]