The aim of this paper is to assess whether the findings of Romer and Romer (2000) on the superiority of staff forecasts are still valid today. The paper uses both latest available econometric techniques as well as conventional tests. Several tests for forecast rationality show that a necessary...

There is a broad consensus in the literature that costs of information processing and acquisition may generate costly disagreements in expectations among economic agents, and that central banks may play a central role in reducing such dispersion in expectations. This paper analyses empirically...

This paper formalizes the process of updating the nowcast and forecast on output and inflation as new releases of data become available. The marginal contribution of a particular release for the value of the signal and its precision is evaluated by computing "news" on the basis of an evolving...

This paper formalizes the process of updating the nowcast and forecast on out-put and inflation as new releases of data become available. The marginal contribution of a particular release for the value of the signal and its precision is evaluated by computing news on the basis of an evolving...

In this paper, we consider whether differences in the forecast performance of ECB SPF respondents reflect ability or chance. Although differences in performance metrics sometimes appear substantial, it is challenging to determine whether they reflect ex ante skill or other factors impacting ex...

This paper documents macroeconomic forecasting during the global financial crisis by two key central banks: the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The paper is the result of a collaborative effort between staff at the two institutions, allowing us to study the...

The aim of this paper is to examine whether Chairman Greenspan influenced the Reserve Bank Presidents. This question is interesting, because it has been argued that their preferences would be more persistent compared to those of the Governors. We estimate individual Taylor-type reaction...

This paper explores whether there are systematic patterns as to when members of the decision-making committees of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank communicate with the public, and under what circumstances such communication has the ability to move financial...

Over the last two decades, communication has become an increasingly important aspect of monetary policy. These real-world developments have spawned a huge new scholarly literature on central bank communication —mostly empirical, and almost all of it written in this decade. We survey this...

The paper investigates to what extent some basic tools of the ECBs monetary analysis can be useful for other central banks given their specific institutional, economic and financial environment. We take the case of the Bank of Russia in order to show how to adjust methods and techniques of...