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Publication

Do Professional Forecasters Believe in Uncovered Interest Rate Parity?

2023-11, Bürgi, Constantin, Song, Mengdi

No, not according to our data. Using a unique data set, we run panel regressions to test whether professional forecasters believe in uncovered interest rate parity (UIP). Specifically, we test whether the interest rate expectations for individual forecasters are in line with their exchange rate expectations using the UIP condition. This new approach allows us to test directly whether forecasters believe in UIP. We find that professional forecasters generally do not believe in UIP across a range of currencies and horizons. Given the prevalence of the UIP condition in our international macro models, these results reiterate the importance of finding the drivers for these deviations.

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Publication

Temporal Consistency of Forecasts and Data Releases

2022-02-11, Bürgi, Constantin, Ortiz, Julio L.

We provide key insights on expectation formation based on the Bloomberg eco- nomic survey: around two thirds of professional forecasters provide GDP forecasts that are temporally consistent, meaning that quarterly forecasts add up to the annual. Temporally consistent forecasts are not more accurate than the inconsistent ones, but inconsistent ones might drive estimates of information frictions in some cases. For the overwhelming majority of consistent forecasts, annual GDP predictions almost imme- diately reflect the monthly GDP releases. These findings suggest that most forecasters make at least minor forecast updates after each data release. Indeed, the inattention rate is found to be between 3% and 6% at the quarterly frequency.