Survey Evidence on the Muthian Rationality of the Inflation Forecasts of Us Consumers

Since January 1978, the University of Michigan Survey Research Center has been collecting the monthly year-ahead inflation forecasts of U.S. consumers. Following the implications of Muthian rational expectations, the author uses L. P. Hansen and R. J. Hodrick's procedure to examine whether these data are unbiased, and whether they outperform comparable nonsurvey augmented-adaptive and naive forecasts in terms of predictive information content. It is concluded that the survey data (unlike the nonsurvey forecasts) are biased. However, they contain more predictive information than that included in the naive forecasts but lack the predictive information contained in the forecasts generated from the augmented-adaptive Phillips curve type model.