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May/June 2003, 
Vol. 85, No. 3
Posted 2003-05-01

FOMC Forecast: Is All the Information in the Central Tendency?


The author describes and documents 23 years of FOMC forecasts. He evaluates the information content of two summary statistics—the low and high forecasts among all the FOMC policymakers (the full range) and the central tendency—and defines two FOMC forecasts based on those statistics: the midpoint of the full range (FR) and the midpoint of the central tendency range (CT). The author compares forecast accuracy, tests for bias and efficiency, and uses encompassing tests to see whether either of these summary statistics encompasses the other. The two forecasts calculated from the FR and CT are quite close. In many of the tests, the author cannot distinguish between the two. However, where statistically significant differences exist, the use of the FR is generally favored.