In this article, we study the point predictions that forecasters report when they are asked to predict the realisation of an iid random variable. We set up a laboratory experiment where the participants act as forecasters predicting the next realisation of random draws coming from different...

Survey questions that elicit point predictions regarding uncertain events face an important challenge as human forecasters use various statistics to summarise their subjective expectations. In this paper, we take up the challenge and study whether alternative formulations of the questions used...

Technological progress in recent years has made new methods available for making forecasts in a variety of areas. We examine the success of ex-ante stock market forecasts of three major stock market indices, i.e., the German Stock Market Index (DAX), the Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJI), and the...

This study investigates the utility of business uncertainty indicators as predictive tools for forecasting economic activity in the context of Russia. In an era characterized by global economic volatility and geopolitical shifts, understanding the dynamics of economic uncertainty and its impact...

We study forecast dispersion in a finite-player forecasting game modeled as an aggregate game with payoff externalities and dispersed information. In the game, each agent cares about being accurate as well as about the distance of his forecast from the average forecast; and with a finite number...

This study investigates whether the properties of sell-side analysts' earnings forecasts are associated with the adverse macroeconomic conditions that exist at the time of their initial hire or major promotion. We find that analysts who begin their career in an economic recession are more...

Using data from the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters, we analyze the role of ex-ante conditioning variables for macroeconomic forecasts. In particular, we test to which extent the heterogeneity, updating and ex-post performance of predictions for inflation, real GDP...

We propose to treat survey-based density expectations as compositional data when testing either for heterogeneity in density forecasts across different groups of agents or for changes over time. Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed test has more power relative to both a bootstrap...

This paper analyzes how firm-specific uncertainty affects firms’ propensity to invest. We measure firm-specific uncertainty as firms’ absolute forecast errors derived from survey data of German manufacturing firms over 2007–2011. In line with the literature, our empirical findings reveal a...