Real-Time Properties of the Federal Reserve's Output Gap

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Edge, Rochelle M.; Rudd, Jeremy B.
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00555
• 发表日期: 2016-10
• 页码: 785-791
• 关键词: reliability; inflation; TRENDS

摘要

We consider the revision properties of Federal Reserve Board staff estimates of the output gap after the mid-1990s and examine the usefulness of these estimates for inflation forecasting. Over this period, we find that the Federal Reserve's output gap is more reliably estimated in real time than previous studies have documented for earlier periods and alternative estimation techniques. In contrast to previous work, we also find no deterioration in forecast performance when inflation projections are conditioned on real-time rather than on final estimates of the output gap.