Currency crises, uncertain fundamentals and private-sector forecasts

The cross-sectional dispersion of private-sector forecasts has been used in recent research on currency crises as a measure of uncertainty over expected fundamentals. We argue that the cross-sectional dispersion of private-sector forecasts need not only reflect uncertainty over expected fundamentals but may also arise due to a deliberate scattering of forecasts. Using data on foreign exchange (FX) reserve forecasts for 11 South-American and Eastern-European countries, we report evidence of such a forecast scattering that seems more pronounced during the economic crisis of 2008/09.