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Journal Article
Testing Hybrid Forecasts for Imports and Exports
The quality of economic forecasts tends to deteriorate during times of stress such as the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions about how to improve forecasts during exceptional times. One method of forecasting that has received less attention is refining model-based forecasts with judgmental adjustment, or hybrid forecasting. Judgmental adjustment is the process of incorporating information from outside a model into a forecast or adjusting a forecast subjectively. Hybrid forecasts could be particularly useful during extraordinary times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, as models that do not ...
Newsletter
Economy to Move Down the Road at a Solid Pace in 2014 and Accelerate Slightly in 2015
According to participants in the Chicago Fed?s annual Automotive Outlook Symposium, the nation?s economic growth is forecasted to be solid this year and to strengthen somewhat in 2015. Inflation is expected to increase in 2014 and remain flat in 2015. The unemployment rate is anticipated to move lower but remain near 6% through the end of 2015. Light vehicle sales are predicted to improve moderately in 2014 and 2015.
Working Paper
What's the Story? A New Perspective on the Value of Economic Forecasts
We apply textual analysis tools to measure the degree of optimism versus pessimism of the text that describes Federal Reserve Board forecasts published in the Greenbook. The resulting measure of Greenbook text sentiment, ?Tonality,? is found to be strongly correlated, in the intuitive direction, with the Greenbook point forecast for key economic variables such as unemployment and inflation. We then examine whether Tonality has incremental power for predicting unemployment, GDP growth, and inflation up to four quarters ahead. We find it to have significant and substantive predictive power for ...
Working Paper
The Power of Narratives in Economic Forecasts
We apply textual analysis tools to the narratives that accompany Federal Reserve Board economic forecasts to measure the degree of optimism versus pessimism expressed in those narratives. Text sentiment is strongly correlated with the accompanying economic point forecasts, positively for GDP forecasts and negatively for unemployment and inflation forecasts. Moreover, our sentiment measure predicts errors in FRB and private forecasts for GDP growth and unemployment up to four quarters out. Furthermore, stronger sentiment predicts tighter than expected monetary policy and higher future stock ...
Journal Article
Modeling Professional Recession Forecasts
Professional forecasters use a wealth of information, including their own experience, to predict economic variables. But can a few publicly available series replicate their recession forecasts?
Newsletter
Economic Outlook Symposium: Summary of 2016 Results and 2017 Forecasts
According to participants in the Chicago Fed?s annual Economic Outlook Symposium, the U.S. economy is forecasted to grow at a pace slightly above average in 2017, with inflation moving higher and the unemployment rate remaining low.