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Working Paper
Implications of real-time data for forecasting and modeling expectations
This note extends the analysis in Stark and Croushore (2001) with an emphasis on the importance of data vintage for survey forecasts and modeling expectations. For both of these types of empirical exercises, results suggest that the choice of latest available or real-time data is critical for variables subject to large level revisions, but almost irrelevant for variables subject to only small revisions. Other forecasting practices were examined, with some surprising results.
Working Paper
Moving endpoints and the internal consistency of agents' ex ante forecasts
Forecasts by rational agents contain embedded initial and terminal boundary conditions. Standard time series models generate two types of long-run "endpoints"---fixed endpoints and moving average endpoints. Neither can explain the shifting endpoints implied by postwar movements in the cross-section of forward rate forecasts in the term structure or by post-1979 changes in survey estimates of expected inflation. Multiperiod forecasts by a broader class of "moving endpoint" time series models provide substantially improved tracking of the historical term structure and generally support the ...
Working Paper
Moving endpoints and the internal consistency of agents' ex ante forecasts
Forecasts by rational agents contain embedded initial and terminal boundary conditions. Standard time series models generate two types of long-run "endpoints"--fixed endpoints and moving average endpoints. Neither can explain the shifting endpoints implied by postwar movements in the cross-section of forward rate forecasts in the term structure or by post-1979 changes in survey estimates of expected inflation. Multiperiod forecasts by a broader class of "moving endpoint" time series models provide substantially improved tracking of the historical term structure and generally support the ...
Working Paper
Vector rational error correction
Systems of forward-looking linear decision rules can be formulated as vector "rational" error correction models. The closed-form solution of the restricted error corrections is derived, and a full-information estimator is suggested. The error correction format indicates that the assumptions of convex adjustment costs and rational expectations impose different types of a priori restrictions on the dynamic structure of the error corrections. An empirical model of the producer decision rule for capital investment illustrates that the data rejects dynamic restrictions imposed by a standard ...
Working Paper
Shifting endpoints in the term structure of interest rates
This paper links the term structure to perceptions of monetary policy. Long-horizon forecasts of short rates needed in empirical term structure models are heavily influenced by the endpoints, or limiting conditional forecasts, of the short rate process. Mean-reversion or unit roots are commonly assumed, but do not provide realistic yield predictions. Failures occur because neither accounts for historical shifts in market perceptions of the policy target for inflation. This paper links endpoint shifts to a learning model where agents must detect shifts in long-term policy goals. With ...
Working Paper
Alternative sources of the lag dynamics of inflation
Data on credit ratings by the agencies with the legal status of Nationally-Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs) show some tendency for one-day downgrades that start from the lowest investment grade, BBB-, to travel more grades than those from neighboring grades. This would be consistent with the lower threshold of the NRSROs? grade BBB- being at a substantial default probability, but also could occur simply because downgrades to junk severely impair some firms? operations. A comparison of data from a non-NRSRO agency and an NRSRO shows that the latter?s regrades from BBB moved ...
Working Paper
Perhaps the FOMC did what it said it did : an alternative interpretation of the Great Inflation
This paper uses real-time briefing forecasts prepared for the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to provide estimates of historical changes in the design of US monetary policy an in the implied central bank target for inflation. Empirical results and FOMC transcripts support a neglected interpretation of policy during the Great inflation of the 1970?s
Working Paper
Dynamic specifications in optimizing trend-deviation macro models
As noted in surveys by Goodfriend and King (1997) and Walsh (1998) and exemplified by models analyzed in Taylor (1999), there is encouraging progress in developing optimizing trend-deviation macro models that provide useful insights into the transmission and design of monetary policy. Several controversial features of a minimalist trend-deviation model, with optimizing households, firms, and bond traders, are examined. Dynamic specifications are suggested to improve the data-based realism, while preserving the simplicity, of the minimalist model.