The aim of this paper is to assess whether the findings of Romer and Romer (2000) on the superiority of staff forecasts are still valid today. The paper uses both latest available econometric techniques as well as conventional tests. Several tests for forecast rationality show that a necessary...

The aim of this paper is to assess whether the findings of Romer and Romer (2000) on the superiority of staff forecasts are still valid today. The paper uses both latest available econometric techniques as well as conventional tests. Several tests for forecast rationality show that a necessary...

This paper assesses the relative performance of central bank staff forecasts and of private forecasters for inflation and output. We show that the Federal Reserve (Fed), and less so the European Central Bank (ECB), has a significant information advantage concerning inflation and output...

This paper aims to extend the findings of Romer and Romer (2000) to a setup where the time variation of (relative) forecast performances is addressed in much greater detail. We show that the relative forecast performances of Fed staff and private forecasters are not stable in the presence of...

Based on ordered Probit models and twenty years of euro area data, we estimate empirical reaction functions for the ECB's monetary policy and augment them with communication indicators. First, we find that the ECB responded to risks to price stability in line with its primary objective, and that...

This paper applies traditional approaches and mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) to explain and forecast velocity of broad money in the euro area and the United States. Our results show that despite financial innovations, over the last two decades broad money velocity followed a declining trend with...