Differing behaviours of forecasters of UK GDP growth
File(s)2023 IJF Meade Driver.pdf (799.95 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Meade, Nigel
Driver, Ciaran
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The literature suggests that the dispersion of agents’ forecasts of an event flows from heterogeneity of beliefs and models. Using a data set of fixed event point forecasts of UK GDP growth by a panel of independent forecasters published by HM Treasury, we investigate three questions concerning this dispersion: (a) Are agent’s beliefs randomly distributed or do agents fall into groups with similar beliefs? (b) as agents revise their forecasts, what roles are played by their previous and consensus forecasts? and (c) is an agent’s private information of persistent value? We find that agents fall into four clusters, a large majority, a few pessimists, and two idiosyncratic agents. Our proposed model of forecast revisions shows agents are influenced positively by a change in the consensus forecast and negatively influenced by the previous distance of their forecast from the consensus. We show that the forecasts of a minority of agents significantly lead the consensus.
Date Issued
2023-04
Date Acceptance
2022-04-01
Citation
International Journal of Forecasting, 2023, 39 (2), pp.772-790
ISSN
0169-2070
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
772
End Page
790
Journal / Book Title
International Journal of Forecasting
Volume
39
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of International Institute of Forecasters. This is an open access article under
the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000984036800001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
Business & Economics
Cluster analysis
CONSENSUS
Economics
Fixed event forecasting
GDP forecasts
Granger causality
Herding
HERDING BEHAVIOR
Management
PREDICTION
PRICES
Social Sciences
UNCERTAINTY
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-04-11