Abstract

Surveys do! We examine the forecasting power of four alternative methods of forecasting U.S. inflation out-of-sample: time-series ARIMA models; regressions using real activity measures motivated from the Phillips curve; term structure models that include linear, non-linear, and arbitrage-free specifications; and survey-based measures. We also investigate several methods of combining forecasts. Our results show that surveys outperform the other forecasting methods and that the term structure specifications perform relatively poorly. We find little evidence that combining forecasts produces superior forecasts to survey information alone. When combining forecasts, the data consistently places the highest weights on survey information.

The final version of this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2006.04.006.

View research
Download PDF

Citation

Bekaert, Geert, Andrew Ang, and Min Wei. "Do Macro Variables, Asset Markets, or Surveys Forecast Inflation Better?" Journal of Monetary Economics 54, no. 4 (May 2007): 1163-1212.

Each author name for a Columbia Business School faculty member is linked to a faculty research page, which lists additional publications by that faculty member.

Each topic is linked to an index of publications on that topic.