Measuring uncertainty and assessing its predictive power in the euro area

Expectations and uncertainty play a key role in economic behavior. This paper deals with both, expectations and uncertainty derived from the European Central Bank Survey of Professional Forecasters. Given the strong turbulences that the euro area macroeconomic indicators observe since 2007, the aim...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Senra Díaz, Eva|||0000-0003-4422-7648, Poncela Blanco, María Del Pilar
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)
Repositorio:e_Buah Biblioteca Digital Universidad de Alcalá
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ebuah.uah.es:10017/27641
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10017/27641
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00181-016-1181-6
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Survey of professional forecasters
Combination of forecasts
Uncertainty
Surprises
Principal components
Economía
Economics
Descripción
Sumario:Expectations and uncertainty play a key role in economic behavior. This paper deals with both, expectations and uncertainty derived from the European Central Bank Survey of Professional Forecasters. Given the strong turbulences that the euro area macroeconomic indicators observe since 2007, the aim of the paper is to check whether there is any room for improvement of the consensus forecast accuracy for GDP growth and inflation when accounting for uncertainty. We propose a new measure of uncertainty, alternative to the ad hoc equal weights commonly used, based on principal components. We test the role of uncertainty in forecasting macroeconomic performance in the euro area between 2005 and 2015. We also check the role of surprises in the considered forecasting sample