Rational Expectations and Macroeconomic Forecasts

The article presents extensive results from testing for bias and serially correlated errors in a collection of time series of quarterly multiperiod forecasts for six variables including real GNP growth, inflation, and unemployment. The analysis covers responses by 79 frequent participants in economic outlook surveys conducted regularly since 1968. It shows much greater incidence of apparently systematic errors for inflation than for the other variables. Also, the tests are more favorable to composite group forecasts than to most of the individual forecast sets.

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