The Research Program on Forecasting supports research, teaching, and dissertation supervision in forecasting as part of the Department of Economics and the Center for Economic Research at The George Washington University. The current research interests of program members include a wide range of studies on the methodology of forecasting and forecast evaluation as well as preparation of macroeconomic and microeconomic forecasts. In addition, program members have supervised dissertations that focus on the theory and application of forecasting.  This year we also sponsor the 2009-2010 University Seminar on Forecasting.  Please watch this cite for upcoming events, and email Tara Sinclair (tsinc@gwu.edu) if you are interested in participating in this seminar. Brown Bag and University Seminar Series on Forecasting (joint with the Federal Forecasters Consortium)  Upcoming Presentations Tuesday, December 15, 2009: TBA Past Presentations and Events "Forecasting Turning Points: Consensus and Disagreement" Prakash Loungani, International Monetary Fund  (Joint work with Natalia Tamirisa and Herman Stekler) Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Please use the following link to see the paper: How Well Are Recessions and Recoveries Forecast? "Unplanned Inventories and the Decline in GDP Volatility"  James Morley, Washington University in St. Louis November 3, 2009 Please use the following link to see the paper: "Unplanned Inventories and the Decline in GDP Volatility" "Real-time VAR Forecasting with a Judgmental Democratic Prior"  Jonathan Wright, Johns Hopkins University October 29, 2009 "How strong a recovery for the world in 2010?” John Walker, Chairman, Oxford Economics October 27, 2009 “Forecast evaluation of small nested model sets”  Kirstin Hubrich, European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve, work completed jointly with Ken West  October 13, 2009 Please use the following link to see the paper: "Forecast evaluation of small nested model sets" 17th Federal Forecasters Conference September 24, 2009 Please use the following link for additional information about the conference: 17th Federal Forecasters Conference "Consensus Forecasts and Inefficient Information Aggregation"  Chris Crowe, International Monetary Fund  September 22, 2009 Please use the following link to see the paper: "Consensus Forecasts and Inefficient Information Aggregation" SGE Annual Conference September 21, 2009 Please use the following link to the conference website: SGE Annual Conference “Introducing the Euro-STING: Short-Term Indicator of Euro Area Growth” Gabriel Perez-Quiros, Bank of Spain · September 16, 2009  · Please use the following link to see the paper:“Introducing the Euro-STING: Short-Term INdicator of Euro Area Growth” · This seminar was conducted jointly with the George Washington University Macro-International Seminar. “Forecasting and Empirical Model Selection” Neil Ericsson, Federal Reserve Board · September 8, 2009 · Please use the following link to see the paper:"Forecasting and Empirical Model Selection" · Please use the following links to see relevant papers:  Comment on “Economic Forecasting in a Changing World” Constructive Data Mining: Modeling Australian Inflation “Measuring U.S. International Relative Prices: A WARP View of the World” Jaime Marquez, Division of International Finance, Federal Reserve Board · May 12, 2009 · Please use the following link to see the paper: Measuring U.S. International Relative Prices: A WARP View of the World “Measuring Forecast Uncertainty by Disagreement: The Missing Link” Kajal Lahiri · April 14, 2009 · Please use the following link to see the paper: Measuring Forecast Uncertainty by Disagreement: The Missing Link “Rethinking our Approach to Time Series Analysis” Ralph Snyder, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Monash University, Australia · March 13, 2009 · Special Forecasting Seminar  · Please use the following link to see the seminar handout: Handout “Coupled Economies, Decoupled Forecasters?” Prakash Loungani, International Monetary Fund  · February 21, 2008 · Please use the following link to see the paper:"Coupled Economies, Decoupled Forecasters?" “Integrating Judgmental and Quantitative Forecasts” Stephen MacDonald, Senior Economist, Economic Research Service, USDA · January 17, 2008 · Please use the following link to see the paper:"Integrating Judgemental and Quantitative Forecasts" “Has the Fed’s Forecasting Advantage Eroded?” Julie Smith, Lafayette College · November 8, 2007 · Please use the following link to see the paper:"Has the Fed's Forecasting Advantage Eroded?" co-authored with Ed Gamber "Jointly Evaluating the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Forecasts of Real GDP Growth and Inflation" Tara Sinclair, Department of Economics, George Washington University · October 18, 2007 · The corresponding paper was co-authored with Herman Stekler and Elizabeth Reid.  “A Framework for Decomposing Shocks and Measuring Volatilities Derived from Multi-Dimensional Panel Data of Survey Forecasts” Antony Davies · August 7, 2007 · Please use the following link to see the paper: "A Framework for Decomposing Shocks and Measuring Volatilities Derived from Multi-Dimensional Panel Data of Survey Forecasts" “Cellulosic Ethanol: Effects on the Future U.S. Economy of Successful Commercialization”  Stefan Osborne · June 19, 2007 · Please use the following link to see the paper:"Cellulosic Ethanol: Effects on the Future U.S. Economy of Successful Commercialization" “A Survey of Results from Sports Frecasts” Herman Stekler, Department of Economics, George Washington University · April  17, 2007  · This seminar was conducted jointly with the George Washington University Microeconomics Seminar · Please use the following link to see the paper: "A Survey of Results from Sports Forecasts", updated August 8, 2007 “Forecasting Interments and Gravesites in National Cemeteries, the New Model” Kathleen Sorensen · March 20, 2007 “Evaluating BLS Labor Force, Employment and Occupation Projections for 2000” Herman Stekler, Department of Economics, George Washington University · February 20, 2007 · Please use the following link to see the paper: "Evaluating BLS Labor Force, Employment,  and Occupation Projections for 2000" co-authored with Rupin Thomas.  “Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation: A Joint Evaluation with an Application to Federal Reserve Predictions” Tara M. Sinclair, Department of Economics, George Washington University · January 9, 2007 · "Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation: A Joint Evaluation With an Application to Federal Reserve Predictions"  by Tara M. Sinclair, H.O. Stekler, and Lindsay Kitzinger.  · Please use the following link to see the paper: “Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation: A Joint Evaluation with and Application to Federal Reserve Predictions” · Please use the following link to see the presentation slides: presentation slides Return to the Top of the Page Current Activities The faculty is composed entirely of active scholars. They have published in some of the top general interest journals as well as leading journals in forecasting, including the American Economic Review, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, International Journal of Forecasting, Applied Economics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, andEnergy Economics . Their work also appears in leading journals in related fields and disciplines, (such as macroeconomics and demography), and they regularly present their work at national and international forecasting conferences.  Ord and Stekler are members of the editorial board of the International Journal of Forecasting. Stekler and Ord are both former Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters and are Fellows of the Institute.  Ord is also a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.  The Survey of Professional Forecasters conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has included the Benchmark Forecasts produced by Joutz since 1990. He has been producing the forecasts of about 25 macroeconomic series since 1988. The survey is done every quarter and includes about 35 forecasters from business, finance, and aceademe. Previously, the survey was conducted under the auspices of the ASA and National Bureau of Economic Research.  Tara Sinclair also contributes to the survey on behalf of the Research Program on Forecasting.  Previously funded research projects include a three year project on short-run and long-run responses of electricity consumption to climate change and variability for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The project  was performed in collaboration with scientists at the Johns Hopkins Schools of Engineering and Public Health Other funds have come from the National Park Service.  The RPF also has a partnership with Federal Forecasters Consortium, an organization of federal employees from all government agencies involved in forecasting. The two groups jointly organize a monthly Brown Bag Seminar Series on Forecasting. Return to the Top of the Page Research Specific projects underway or recently completed by program members include:  Recent Expert Testimony Fred Joutz testified in a hearing held by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) to examine the state of the global energy markets and the impact of sustained high oil prices on the U.S. economy. Recent Audio and Video November 24, 2008: Tara Sinclair was interviewed by Fox 5 morning news about the economic outlook. November 13, 2008: Tara Sinclair was interviewed by Fox 5 morning news about the modifications to the bailout plan. October 22, 2008:  Tara Sinclair was interviewed by Medill Reports about the different presidential candidates' tax policies. Herman Stekler discusses with Boomberg Radio how today's stock market activity relates to the situation during the Great Depression. Prakash Loungani provides an analysis of developments in  global housing markets. Further reading here. September 29, 2008:  Fred Joutz and Tara Sinclair were interviewed by Fox 5 news on the economics content of Barak Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention.  Other Recent Press: July 23, 2009: A Business Standard article highlighted research by Tara Sinclair, Fred Joutz, and Herman Stekler in RPF Working Paper No. 2009-001. April 6, 2009: A Bloomberg article discussed a working paper by Tara Sinclair.  August 17, 2008:  The work presented by Prakash Loungani in our February brownbag was mentioned in the New York TimesMagazine in an article about Nouriel Roubini: "Recessions are signal events in any modern economy. And yet remarkably, the profession of economics is quite bad at predicting them. A recent study looked at "consensus forecasts" (the predictions of large groups of economists) that were made in advance of 60 different national recessions that hit around the world in the '90s: in 97 percent of the cases, the study found, the economists failed to predict the coming contraction a year in advance. On those rare occasions when economists did successfully predict recessions, they significantly underestimated the severity of the downturns. Worse, many of the economists failed to anticipate recessions that occurred as soon as two months later."  "He sounded like a madman in 2006," recalls the I.M.F. economist Prakash Loungani, who invited [Nouriel] Roubini [to the IMF] on both occasions.  "He was a prophet when he returned in 2007."  Prakash Loungani blogs on the excessive smoothness of forecasts for RGE Monitor: "Think about it this way: what use is a weather forecaster who never calls for rain until both you and he can look out of the window and see that it is indeed raining? A weather forecaster is doing his job if he does call, every now and then, for rain ahead of time, even at the risk of being wrong and annoying his clients for making them carry an umbrella around or rescheduling outdoor tennis matches when they didn’t have to. A weather forecast that bounces around can be annoying but it may also be a sign of the forecaster taking his job seriously." WSJ.com blogs about Ed Gamber and Julie Smith's Working Paper (Working Paper No. 2007-002 below). Recent Publications: Are the Fed’s Inflation Forecasts Still Superior to the Private Sector’s? by Edward N. Gamber and Julie K. Smith, RPF Working Paper No. 2007-002, is now forthcoming in the Journal of Macroeconomics. "Economic Forecasts: Too Smooth By Far?" by Prakash Loungani and Jair Rodriguez in now published in World Economics. Summary: Will the U.S. economy go into a recession? Will other countries “decouple” from the United States? To those turning to private sector economic forecasters for guidance on these questions, this article sounds a note of caution: the past performance of forecasters on these two questions leaves much to be desired. Few recessions have been forecast ahead of their arrival. Nor do forecasters take into account fully the dependence of economies on one another; we present evidence that the dependence on the U.S. economy of the other members of the G7 has been under-appreciated by forecasters in the past. In short, economies are coupled, but one country’s forecasters often seem to be decoupled from those in other countries.  "Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation: A Joint Evaluation With an Application to Federal Reserve Predictions" by Tara M. Sinclair, H.O. Stekler, and Lindsay Kitzinger is now forthcoming in Applied Economics. "An Evaluation of the Forecasts of the Federal Reserve:  A Pooled Approach" by Michael P. Clements, Fred Joutz, and Herman O. Stekler is now published in the Journal of Applied Econometrics 22(1), 121-136.  Recent Presentations: "Econometric Forecasting Models" presented by Fred Joutz at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Middle Atlantic Actuarial Club, Inc.  Forecast evaluations:  Federal Reserve Board forecasts of macroeconomic conditions  Expert, computer model, and betting line forecasts of NFL games  Interest rate spreads as predictors of business cycles  U.S. Census Bureau projections of state populations  The role of asymmetric, non-linear models in forecasting  Preparation of forecasts of: U.S. macroeconomic conditions  Electricity consumption and prices  Motor gasoline demand  Municipal solid waste generation  Effects of technical change on productivity in public enterprises  Patent applications  Leading series of the transportation sector  National defense readiness measures Return to the Top of the Page Members Frederick L. Joutz, Professor of Economics, Program Director, and member of the Federal Forecasters Consortium Governing Board.  Tara M. Sinclair, Assistant Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Program Co-Director, and member of the Federal Forecasters Consortium Governing Board.  Bryan L. Boulier, Professor of Economics  Michael D. Bradley, Professor of Economics  Antony Davies, Associate Professor of Economics, Duquesne University  Neil R. Ericsson, Chief, Research and Information Systems Section, Division of International Finance, Federal Reserve Board  Edward N. Gamber,  Professor of Economics, Lafayette College, and former Macroeconomic Forecaster of the Congressional Budget Office  Prakash Loungani, Advisor in the Research Department of the IMF (International Monetary Fund)  Michael W. McCracken, Research Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis  Robert Phillips, Professor of Economics, Chair  J. Keith Ord, Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown  University, Fellow of International Institute of Forecasting, Fellow of  American Statistical Association  Refik Soyer, Professor of Management Science  Julie K. Smith, Assistant Professor of Economics, Lafayette College  H.O. Stekler, Research Professor of Economics and Fellow of International Institute of Forecasting  Peter Tinsley, Professor of Economics, Birkbeck College, University of London  Robert Trost, Professor of Economics  Anthony M. Yezer, Professor of Economics  Return to the Top of the Page Contact Information Fred Joutz or Tara M. Sinclair  Department of Economics  Monroe/Hall of Goverment Suite 340  2115 G Street NW  Washington, DC 20052  Joutz: (202) 994-4899  email: bmark@gwu.edu Sinclair: (202) 994-7988  email: tsinc@gwu.edu fax:  (202) 994-6147  Return to the Top of the Page Forecasting Links International Institute of Forecasters Survey of Professional Forecasters CES/IFO Economic Forecasts International Journal of Forecasting Journal of Forecasting Federal Forecasters Consortium Forecasting Principles Return to the Top of the Page Working Papers  2009 No. 2009-001: Can the Fed Predict the State of the Economy?  Tara M. Sinclair, Fred Joutz, and Herman O. Stekler.  Note: This is a substantially revised version of RPF Working Paper No. 2008-010.  2008 No. 2008-011: Bootstrap Tests of Stationarity James Morley and Tara M. Sinclair.  No. 2008-010: Are 'unbiased' forecasts really unbiased? Another look at the Fed forecasts  Tara M. Sinclair, Fred Joutz, and Herman O. Stekler.  No. 2008-009: What Do We Know About G-7 Macro Forecasts? Herman O. Stekler.  No. 2008-008: Exhaustive Regression: An Exploration of Regression-Based Data Mining Techniques Using Super Computation Antony Davies.  No. 2008-007: Evaluating Census Forecasts Herman O. Stekler.  No. 2008-006: Measuring Consensus in Binary Forecasts: NFL Game Predictions ChiUng Song, Bryan L. Boulier, and Herman O. Stekler.  No. 2008-005: Evaluating Current Year Forecasts Made During the Year: A Japanese Example H.O. Stekler and Kazuta Sakamoto.  No. 2008-004: Monitoring Processes with Changing Variances J. Keith Ord  No. 2008-003: Exponential smoothing and non-negative data Muhammad Akram, Rob J Hyndman, and J. Keith Ord.  Updated: 8/8/08 No. 2008-002: Multivariate Forecast Errors and the Taylor Rule  Edward N. Gamber, Tara M. Sinclair, H.O. Stekler and Elizabeth Reid.  Updated: 3/20/2009 No. 2008-001:   Forecast Errors Before and After the Great Moderation Edward N. Gamber, Julie K. Smith, and Matthew Weiss.  2007 Updated: 8/6/2008: No. 2007-002: Are the Fed’s Inflation Forecasts Still Superior to the Private Sector’s? Edward N. Gamber and Julie K. Smith. Note:  A revised version of this paper is now forthcoming in the Journal of Macroeconomics No. 2007-001: Sports Forecasting  Herman O. Stekler.  2006 No. 2006-001: An Evaluation of the Forecasts of the Federal Reserve:  A Pooled Approach. Michael P. Clements, Fred Joutz, and Herman O. Stekler.  Note:  A revised version of this paper is now published in the Journal of Applied Econometrics 22(1), 121-136. No. 2006-002 updated 11/14/06: Directional Forecasts of GDP and Inflation: A Joint Evaluation With an Application to Federal Reserve Predictions Tara M. Sinclair, H.O. Stekler, and Lindsay Kitzinger.  Note:  A revised version of this paper is now forthcoming in Applied Economics. Return to the Top of the Page Research Program on Forecasting Revised: November 10, 2009