Do FOMC Members Herd?
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Philipps-Universität Marburg
Abstract
Twice a year FOMC members submit forecasts for growth, unemplyoment and inflation to be published in the Humphrey-Hawkins Report to Congress. In this paper we use individual FOMC forecasts to assess whether these forecasts exhibit herding behavior, a pattern often found in private sector forecasts. While growth and unemployment forecast do not show herding behavior, the inflation forecasts show strong evidence of anti-herding, i.e. FOMC members intentionally scatter their forecasts around the consensus. Interestingly, anti-herding is more important for nonvoting members than for voters.
Keywords
monetary policy, forecasting, herding, Federal Open Market Committee