Consensus Forecasts and Inefficient Information Aggregation /

Consensus forecasts are inefficient, over-weighting older information already in the public domain at the expense of new private information, when individual forecasters have different information sets. Using a cross-country panel of growth forecasts and new methodological insights, this paper finds...

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Dettagli Bibliografici
Autore principale: Crowe, Christopher
Natura: Periodico
Lingua:English
Pubblicazione: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2010.
Serie:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2010/178
Soggetti:
Accesso online:Full text available on IMF
Descrizione
Riassunto:Consensus forecasts are inefficient, over-weighting older information already in the public domain at the expense of new private information, when individual forecasters have different information sets. Using a cross-country panel of growth forecasts and new methodological insights, this paper finds that: consensus forecasts are inefficient as predicted; this is not due to individual forecaster irrationality; forecasters appear unaware of this inefficiency; and a simple adjustment reduces forecast errors by 5 percent. Similar results are found using US nominal GDP forecasts. The paper also discusses the result's implications for users of forecaster surveys and for the literature on information aggregation.
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Descrizione fisica:1 online resource (43 pages)
Natura:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Accesso:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students