Open AccessUncertainty and Disagreement in Economic Prediction: The Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters *
Author(s) -
Boero Gianna,
Smith Jeremy,
Wallis Kenneth F.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the economic journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.683
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1468-0297
pISSN - 0013-0133
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02162.x
Subject(s) - inflation (cosmology) , survey of professional forecasters , economics , monetary policy , independence (probability theory) , point (geometry) , survey data collection , econometrics , economic forecasting , monetary economics , macroeconomics , public economics , statistics , mathematics , physics , geometry , theoretical physics
This article introduces a new source of survey data, namely the Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters. The survey collects point and density forecasts of inflation and GDP growth and, hence, offers the opportunity of constructing direct measures of uncertainty. We present a simple statistical framework in which to define and interrelate measures of uncertainty and disagreement. The resulting measures are compared with other direct measures of uncertainty, nationally and internationally. A significant, sustained reduction in inflation uncertainty followed the 1997 granting of operational independence to the Bank of England to pursue a monetary policy of inflation targeting.