Decomposing Federal Funds Rate forecast uncertainty using real-time data

This paper uses real-time data for the U.S. to estimate out-of-sample forecast uncertainty about the Federal Funds Rate. By combining a Taylor rule with an unobserved components model of economic fundamentals I separate forecast uncertainty into economically interpretable components that represent uncertainty about future economic conditions and uncertainty about future monetary policy. The estimation results indicate important time variation in uncertainty about the future Federal Funds Rate.