Analyzing Fixed-event Forecast Revisions

Abstract

It is common practice to evaluate fixed-event forecast revisions in macroeconomics by regressing current revisions on one-period lagged revisions. Under weak-form efficiency, the correlation between the current and one-period lagged revisions should be zero. The empirical findings in the literature suggest that the null hypothesis of zero correlation between the current and one-period lagged revisions is rejected quite frequently, where the correlation can be either positive or negative. In this paper we propose a methodology to be able to interpret such non-zero correlations in a straightforward manner. Our approach is based on the assumption that forecasts can be decomposed into both an econometric model and expert intuition. The interpretation of the sign of the correlation between the current and one-period lagged revisions depends on the process governing intuition, and the correlation between intuition and news.