In this paper we jointly evaluate the Federal Reserve staff forecasts of U.S. real output growth and the inflation rate, assuming that the forecasts are to be used as inputs for the Taylor rule. Our simple methodology generates “policy forecast errors” which have a direct interpretation for...

Using forecasts of the inflation rate in South Africa, we study the rationality of forecasts and the shape of forecasters’ loss function. When we study micro-level data of individual forecasts, we find mixed evidence of an asymmetric loss function, suggesting that inflation forecasters are...

This paper analyzes the issue of choosing a socially efficient rule on how to leave the toilet seat. Leaving the seat as it is after usage is found to be the best rule over a wide parameters space. Using a loss function minimization approach, factors such as relative toilet usage, frequency of...

In this paper we obtain conditions under which the central bank loss function is strictly convex in four different states of the economy: booming economy, recession, high inflation and high output. Moreover, we found that when inflation and output are linear functions of the monetary policy...

Given that the prices of gold and silver have witnessed large and substantial swings in recent years, policymakers and investors need readily available and reliable forecasts of the prices of these two precious metals. Survey data of forecasts of the prices of gold and silver provide a...

Using forecasts of exchange rates of the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso against the US dollar, we analyze the symmetry of the loss function of exchange-rate forecasters and the rationality of their forecasts. Symmetry of the loss function can be rejected for some forecasters but not all....

In this paper we address the problem of forecasting the target events of a time series given the distribution ξ of time gaps between target events. Strong earthquakes and stock market crashes are the two types of such events that we are focusing on. In the series of earthquakes, as McCann...

The study investigates the value of additional information on the response function to soil salinity of a given crop (potatoes), with regard to a stochastic long-run optimization model for utilization of saline water to a single farm framework. The analysis provides a conceptual and...

This article studies the process from data acquisition to policy decisions exemplified by studying an optimum policy on global warming. Policymakers must be reasonably skeptical before proposing remedies to curb warming, but policymakers cannot await the final proof of any proposal’s merit....

The effectiveness of alternative loss functions assigned to the common central bank of a monetary union is studied. The alternative policy objectives are a function of the degree of aggregation of decision variables. We consider, respectively, the policy based on the union-wide aggregates and...