We consider the problem of optimally combining individual forecasts of gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) dataset for the Euro Area. Contrary to the common practice of using equal combination weights, we compute optimal weights which...

Nominal and real U.S. interest rates (1997Q1-2008Q2) are combined with inflation expectations from the Survey of Professional Forecasters to calculate time series of risk premia. It is shown that survey data on inflation and output growth uncertainty, as well as a proxy for liquidity premia can...

We study the inflation uncertainty reported by individual forecasters in the Survey of Professional Forecasters 1969-1999. Three popular methods of estimating uncertainty from survey data are analysed in the context of models for forecasting and asset pricing. We find that inflation uncertainty...

Survey data on household expectations of inflation are routinely used in economic analysis, yet it is not clear to what extent households are able to articulate their expectations in survey interviews. We propose an alternative approach to recovering households' implicit expectations of...

Abel (2002) shows that pessimism and doubt in the subjective distribution of the growth rate of consumption reduce the risk-free rate puzzle and the equity premium puzzle. We quantify the amount of pessimism and doubt in survey data on US consumption and income. Individual forecasters are, in...

Survey and option data are used to take a new look at the equity premium puzzle. Survey data on equity returns (Livingston survey) shows much lower expected excess returns than ex post data. At the same time, option data (CBOE's VIX) indicates that investors overestimate the volatility of equity...

We identify government spending news and surprise shocks using a novel identification based on the Survey of Professional Forecasters. News shocks lead to an increase of the interest rate, a real appreciation of US dollar and a worsening of the trade balance. The opposite is found for the...

We assess the perception of professional forecasters regarding the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy measures undertaken by the U.S. Federal Reserve after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Using individual survey data, we analyse the changes in forecasting of bond yields around the...

This paper explores the determinants of deviations of ex-post budget outcomes from first-release outcomes published towards the end of the year of budget implementation. The predictive content of the first-release outcomes is important, because these figures are an input for the next budget and...

Using real-time data from the annual budget over the period 1958-2009, we explore the planning and realization of fiscal policy in the Netherlands. Our key findings are the following. First, planned surpluses are on average unbiased, although they are overoptimistic during the first half of the...