AN EVALUATION OF INFLATION EXPECTATIONS IN TURKEY

Barış Soybilgen and Ege Yazgan

Expectations on the future state of the inflation play a critical part in the process of price level determination in the market. Therefore, central banks closely follow the developments in inflation expectations to able to pursue a successful monetary policy. In Turkey, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) asks experts and decision makers from financial and real sectors about their expectations/predictions on the current and the future state of inflation every month to obtain market expectations on inflation. This paper examines these predictions of inflation using techniques of forecasting literature. We analyze both point and sign accuracy of these predictions. Point predictions from CBRT surveys are compared with those obtained from AR models, and tested whether they are statistically different. Sign predictions are tested whether they are valuable to a user. We also test predictions for unbiasedness.

pdf. WorkingPaper#017