Article,
Housing Starts in Canada, Japan, and the United States: Do Forecasters Herd?
Affiliations
- [1] Univ Saarland, Dept Econ, D-66041 Saarbrucken, Germany [NORA names: Germany; Europe, EU; OECD];
- [2] WHU Otto Beisheim Sch Management, Dept Econ, D-56179 Vallendar, Germany [NORA names: Germany; Europe, EU; OECD];
- [3] Europa Univ Viadrina Frankfurt Oder, Fak Wirtschaftswissensch, D-15207 Frankfurt, Oder, Germany [NORA names: Germany; Europe, EU; OECD];
- [4] Univ So Denmark SDU, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark [NORA names: SDU University of Southern Denmark; University; Denmark; Europe, EU; Nordic; OECD]
Abstract
Recent price trends in housing markets may reflect herding of market participants. A natural question is whether such herding, to the extent that it occurred, reflects herding in forecasts of professional forecasters. Using survey data for Canada, Japan, and the United States, we did not find evidence of forecaster herding. On the contrary, forecasters anti-herd and, thereby, tend to intentionally scatter their forecasts around the consensus forecast. The extent of anti-herding seems to vary over time. For Canada and the United States, we found that more pronounced anti-herding leads to lower forecast accuracy.
Keywords
Forecasting,
Herding,
Housing starts
