Do expert experience and characteristics affect inflation forecasts

Each person's characteristics may influence that person's behaviors and outcomes. This study builds and uses a new database to estimate experts' performance and boldness based on their experience and characteristics. Our study classifies experts providing inflation forecasts based on their education, experience, gender, and environment. We provide alternative interpretations of factors affecting experts' inflation forecasting performance, boldness, and pessimism by linking behavioral economics, the economics of education, and forecasting literature. The study finds that an expert with previous experience at a central bank appears to have a lower propensity for predicting deflation. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.