The Livingston Survey is a biannual survey (conducted in June and December of every year) about the

economy of the United States The United States is a highly developed mixed-market economy and has the world's largest nominal GDP and net wealth. It has the second-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) behind China. It has the world's seventh-highest per capita GD ...

conducted by the

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia — also known as the Philadelphia Fed or the Philly Fed — headquartered at 10 Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is responsible for the Third District of the Federal Reserve, which covers ...

. Begun in 1946, it is the longest continuous record of economists' expectations.

History

Joseph Livingston Joseph Arnold Livingston () was a business journalist and economist known for his long-running syndicated economics column for which he received a Pulitzer Prize and three Gerald Loeb Awards. He created the Livingston Survey, a twice-yearly eco ...

, then the financial editor for ''

The Philadelphia Record ''The Philadelphia Record'' was a daily newspaper published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1877 until 1947. It became among the most circulated papers in the city and was at some points the circulation leader. History ''The Public Record'' ...

'', created the survey in 1946. His detailed questionnaire asked approximately 50 economists around the United States to forecast various economic performance metrics for the next six months, year, and two years. Livingston administered the survey semiannually until his death in 1989, making it the longest continuous record of economists' expectations. In 1978, the

digitized Livingston's historical data and made it available to researchers. The bank continued administering the survey after his death. A 1997 paper by Dean Croushure of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia described the history of the survey, argued for its usefulness in testing

rational expectations In economics, "rational expectations" are model-consistent expectations, in that agents inside the model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16 ...

hypotheses through the comparison of forecasts with reality, and explained how the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia was taking over the survey.

Variables and data sources

The forecasts made by the Livingston Survey of its variables are compared with actual values reported by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the United States Department of Commerce is a U.S. government agency that provides official economy of the United States, macroeconomic and industry statistics, most notably reports about the gross domestic ...

(in its

Survey of Current Business The ''Survey of Current Business'' (SCB) is a monthly publication by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) (a part of the United States Department of Commerce) that provides definitive information about the national economic accounts for the econo ...

Federal Reserve Board The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Federal Reserve Board, is the main governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It is charged with overseeing the Federal Reserve Banks and with helping implement the mon ...

, and

Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...

. Forecasts are made for the values of all variables six months from now and twelve months from now (i.e., coinciding in time with the next two administrations of the survey). The variables forecast are subdivided into variables reported quarterly, monthly, and daily. For variables reported quarterly, forecasts for the values two quarters from now and four quarters from now are recorded. For variables reported monthly, forecasts for the values six months from now and twelve months from now are recorded. Similarly, for variables reported daily, forecasts are recorded for the value on the ''last'' day of the month six months and twelve months from now. In addition: * The June survey includes forecasts for the annual average for the current year and for the next year. * The December survey includes forecasts for the annual average for the current year and for the next two years. Beginning with the survey of June 1990 (and excluding December 1990) two other long-range forecast questions were included in the survey: * The 10-year annual-average rate of

consumer price index A consumer price index (CPI) is a price index, the price of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. Changes in measured CPI track changes in prices over time. Overview A CPI is a statistica ...

inflation. * The 10-year annual-average rate of growth in

real GDP Real gross domestic product (real GDP) is a macroeconomic measure of the value of economic output adjusted for price changes (i.e. inflation or deflation). This adjustment transforms the money-value measure, nominal GDP, into an index for quantity ...

. The main variables are as follows: * The quarterly variables include various measures of

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...

(including

and

nominal GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often ...

). * The monthly variables include measures of the

, housing starts, industrial production, and unemployment. * The daily variables include various interest rate measures and the

S&P 500 The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of D ...

index value.

Reception

Academic research

There is extensive academic research citing the Livingston Survey, including some devoted to evaluating the accuracy and bias in the forecasts. For instance, a 1983 paper by Dietrich and Joines began with the observation: "For more than a decade, researchers have been using the Livingston survey data on inflationary expectations in empirical work." The heyday of use for the Livingston Survey was the late 1970s and early 1980s, because it was the main survey of forecasts that had been around for a sufficiently long time at the time. Around 1990, research on forecast accuracy switched to using the

Survey of Professional Forecasters The Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) is a quarterly survey of macroeconomic forecasts for the economy of the United States issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. It is the oldest such survey in the United States. The survey i ...

and

Blue Chip Economic Indicators Blue Chip Economic Indicators is a monthly survey and associated publication by Wolters Kluwer collecting macroeconomic forecasts related to the economy of the United States. The survey polls America's top business economists, collecting their f ...

, and more recent research has focused on the

Consensus Forecasts Used in a number of sciences, ranging from econometrics to meteorology, consensus forecasts are predictions of the future that are created by combining together several separate forecasts which have often been created using different methodologies ...

Reception in the press and blogs

Livingston Survey forecasts have been cited by the financial press and blogs many times.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/real-time-center/livingston-survey/ Economic forecasting Economy of the United States