Summary Exchange rates have been found to be more volatile than underlying macroeconomic fundamentals. Researchers have argued that the empirically observed high exchange-rate volatility may result from herd behavior of foreign-exchange traders and forecasters. We sketch a standard model that...

We study the rationality of the inflation forecasts of the central banks of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. We reject rationality under a symmetric (Chile is an exception) but not under an asymmetric loss function. An overprediction implies a larger loss than an underprediction. We also...

Using forecasts of exchange rates of the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso against the US dollar, we analyze the symmetry of the loss function of exchange-rate forecasters and the rationality of their forecasts. Symmetry of the loss function can be rejected for some forecasters but not all....

Based on the approach advanced by Elliott, Komunjer, and Timmermann (2005), we analyzed whether the loss function of a sample of exchange-rate forecasters is asymmetric in the forecast error. Using forecasts of the dollar/euro exchange rate, we found that the shape of the loss function varies...

Recent price trends in housing markets may reflect herding of market participants. A natural question is whether such herding, to the extent that it occurred, reflects herding in forecasts of professional forecasters. Using survey data for Canada, Japan, and the United States, we did not find...

Survey data of forecasts of the housing market may provide a particularly rich data environment for researchers and policymakers to study developments in housing markets. Based on the approach advanced by Elliott <italic>et al</italic>. (2005), we studied the properties of a large set of survey data of housing...

Based on the approach developed by Elliott <italic>et al</italic>. (2005), we found that the loss function of a sample of oil price forecasters is asymmetric in the forecast error. Our findings indicate that the loss oil price forecasters incurred when their forecasts exceeded the price of oil tended to be...