This paper considers the issue of predicting cyclical turning points using real-time diffusion indexes constructed using a large data set from March 2005 to September 2014. We construct diffusion indexes at the monthly frequency, compare several smoothing and signal extraction methods, and...

Recent research has documented that the Federal Reserve produces systematic errors in forecasting inflation, real GDP growth, and the unemployment rate, even though these forecasts are unbiased. We show that these systematic errors reveal that the Fed is “surprised” by real and inflationary...

Recruiting competent personnel is crucial for the success of any organization, and especially in competitive sports, where the success of a team depends upon the quality of the players selected. This paper examines whether football executives are able to forecast who the most successful...

A large amount of effort is spent on forecasting the outcomes of sporting events, but few papers have focused exclusively on the characteristics of sports forecasts. Instead, many papers have been written about the efficiency of sports betting markets. As it turns out, it is possible to derive a...

We show that systematic forecast errors reveal that the Fed is "surprised" by real and inflationary cycles. The Fed knows the state of the economy for the current quarter, but cannot predict it one-quarter ahead.