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.

We present a novel approach to assessing the attentiveness of professional forecasters to news about the macroeconomy. We find evidence that professional forecasters, taken as a group, do not always update their estimates of the current state of the economy to reflect the latest releases of...