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Journal Article
Philadelphia Fed forecasting surveys: their value for research
For almost 20 years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has conducted both the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Livingston Survey. Both surveys of private-sector forecasters provide researchers, central bankers, news media, and the public with detailed forecasts of major macroeconomic variables. The surveys have proved helpful for people who are planning for the future, and they have also provided useful input into the decisions of policymakers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere. In ?Philadelphia Fed Forecasting Surveys: Their Value for Research,? Dean Croushore provides an ...
Working Paper
Evaluating McCallum's rule when monetary policy matters
This paper provides new evidence on the usefulness of McCallum's proposed rule for monetary policy. The rule targets nominal GDP using the monetary base as the instrument. We analyze the rule using three very different economic models to see if the rule works well in different environments. Our results suggest that while the rule leads to lower inflation than there has been over the last 30 years, instability problems suggest that the rule should be modified to feed back on the growth rate of nominal GDP rather than the level.
Journal Article
What are the costs of disinflation?
Working Paper
Expectations and the effects of monetary policy
This paper examines the predictive power of shifts in monetary policy, as measured by changes in the real federal funds rate, for output, inflation, and survey expectations of these variables. The authors find that policy shifts have larger effects on actual output than on expected output; thus policy predicts errors in output expectations, a violation of rational expectations. Policy shifts do not predict errors in inflation expectations. The authors explain these results with a model in which agents systematically underestimate the effects of policy on aggregate demand. This model helps to ...
Working Paper
FISCAL SURPRISES AT THE FOMC
This paper provides a detailed examination of a new set of fiscal forecasts for the U.S. assembled by Croushore and van Norden (2017) from FOMC briefing books. The data are of particular interest because (1) they afford a look at fiscal forecasts over six complete business cycles and several fiscal policy regimes, covering both peacetime and several wars, (2) the forecasts were precisely those presented to monetary policymakers, (3) they include frequently updated estimates of both actual and cyclically adjusted deficits, (4) unlike most other U.S. fiscal forecasts, they were neither partisan ...
Working Paper
Ricardian equivalence under income uncertainty
Working Paper
Forecasting Consumption Spending Using Credit Bureau Data
This paper considers whether the inclusion of information contained in consumer credit reports might improve the predictive accuracy of forecasting models for consumption spending. To investigate the usefulness of aggregate consumer credit information in forecasting consumption spending, this paper sets up a baseline forecasting model. Based on this model, a simulated real-time, out-of-sample exercise is conducted to forecast one-quarter ahead consumption spending. The exercise is run again after the addition of credit bureau variables to the model. Finally, a comparison is made to test ...
Journal Article
Consumer confidence surveys: can they help us forecast consumer spending in real time?
In ?Consumer Confidence Surveys: Can They Help Us Forecast Consumer Spending in Real Time?,? Dean Croushore uses the Philadelphia Fed?s real-time data set to investigate an important question: Does using data available to forecasters at the time ? that is, real-time data ? make measures of consumer confidence more valuable for forecasting?