We use the term structure of forecasts of housing starts to test for rationality of forecasts. Our test is based on the idea that short-term and long-term forecasts should be internally consistent. We test the internal consistency of forecasts using data for Australia, Canada, Japan and the...

We used the yen/dollar exchange-rate forecasts of the <italic>Wall Street Journal</italic> (WSJ) poll to analyse whether exchange-rate forecasters have an asymmetric loss function. To this end, we applied an approach recently developed by Elliott <italic>et al</italic>. (2005). We found that only few forecasters seem to form...

We use a nonparametric market-timing test to study the <italic>directional accuracy</italic> of survey forecasts of the prices of gold and silver. We find that forecasters have market-timing ability with respect to the direction of change of the price of silver at various forecast horizons. In contrast,...

The cross-sectional dispersion of private-sector forecasts has been used in recent research on currency crises as a measure of uncertainty over expected fundamentals. We argue that the cross-sectional dispersion of private-sector forecasts need not only reflect uncertainty over expected...

This article provides robust estimates that the Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Federal Reserve Bank and the European Central Bank (ECB) respond to a 1% increase in oil price expectations with an increase in the interest rate of on average about 11 basis points. To correctly assess the...

Central bank projections have gained considerable attention for monetary policy modelling. However, less is known about the nature of central bank projections. This letter explores the unbiasedness and rationality of more than 2000 growth and inflation projections published by 15 major central...

Results of earlier empirical research on whether survey data on forecasts of interest rates exhibit signs of forecaster herding are mixed. We reconsider the question of forecaster herding using a large international data set of interest-rate forecasts. We do not find much evidence of forecaster...

The study incorporates information on the term structure of interest rates into empirical reaction functions for the Bundesbank and the European Central Bank. The results suggest that the term structure played a statistically significant role for the monetary policy of both central banks.