Forecast uncertainty—ex Ante and ex Post: U.S. inflation and output growth

Clements, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6329-1341 (2014) Forecast uncertainty—ex Ante and ex Post: U.S. inflation and output growth. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 32 (2). pp. 206-216. ISSN 0735-0015 doi: 10.1080/07350015.2013.859618

Abstract/Summary

Survey respondents who make point predictions and histogram forecasts of macro-variables reveal both how uncertain they believe the future to be, ex ante, as well as their ex post performance. Macroeconomic forecasters tend to be overconfident at horizons of a year or more, but overestimate (i.e., are underconfident regarding) the uncertainty surrounding their predictions at short horizons. Ex ante uncertainty remains at a high level compared to the ex post measure as the forecast horizon shortens. There is little evidence of a link between individuals’ ex post forecast accuracy and their ex ante subjective assessments.