Quantitative Economics

Journal Of The Econometric Society

Edited by: Stéphane Bonhomme • Print ISSN: 1759-7323 • Online ISSN: 1759-7331

Quantitative Economics: May, 2023, Volume 14, Issue 2

Quantifying Noise in Survey Expectations

https://doi.org/10.3982/QE1633
p. 609-650

Artūras Juodis, Simas Kučinskas

Expectations affect economic decisions, and inaccurate expectations are costly. Expectations can be wrong due to either bias (systematic mistakes) or noise (unsystematic mistakes). We develop a framework for quantifying the level of noise in survey expectations. The method is based on the insight that theoretical models of expectation formation predict a factor structure for individual expectations. Using data from professional forecasters, we find that the magnitude of noise is large (10%–30% of forecast MSE) and comparable to bias. We illustrate how our estimates can be applied to calibrate models with incomplete information and bound the effects of measurement error.


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Artūras Juodis and Simas Kučinskas

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