We consider a number of ways of testing whether macroeconomic forecasters herd or anti-herd, i.e., whether they shade their forecasts towards those of others or purposefully exaggerate their differences. When applied to survey respondents' expectations of inflation and output growth the tests...

Greater data availability has been coupled with developments in statistical theory and economic theory to allow more elaborate and complicated models to be entertained. These include factor models, DSGE models, restricted vector autoregressions, and non-linear models.

In this paper we consider the value of Google Trends search data for nowcasting (and forecasting) GDP growth for a developed (U.S.) and emerging-market economy (Brazil). Our focus is on the marginal contribution of "Big Data" in the form of Google Trends data over and above that of traditional...