News and Noise in G-7 GDP Announcements

24 Pages Posted: 5 Jan 2001

See all articles by Jon Faust

Jon Faust

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

John H. Rogers

Fudan University - Fanhai International School of Finance (FISF)

Jonathan H. Wright

Johns Hopkins University - Department of Economics

Date Written: December 2000

Abstract

Revisions to GDP announcements are known to be quite large in all G-7 countries: many revisions in quarterly GDP growth are over a full percentage point at an annualized rate. In this paper, we examine the predictability of these data revisions. Previous work suggests that U.S. GDP revisions are largely unpredictable, as would be the case if the revisions reflect news not available at the time that the preliminary number is produced. We find that the degree of predictability varies throughout the G-7. For the U.S., the revisions are very slightly predictable, but for Italy, Japan and the UK, about half the variability of subsequent revisions can be accounted for by information available at the time of the preliminary announcement. For these countries, it appears that revisions reflect, to a significant degree, the removal of noise from the preliminary numbers, rather than the arrival of news.

Keywords: Vintage Data, Preliminary Data, Final Data, Revision, GDP

Suggested Citation

Faust, Jon and Rogers, John H. and Wright, Jonathan H., News and Noise in G-7 GDP Announcements (December 2000). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=255466 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.255466

Jon Faust (Contact Author)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ( email )

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John H. Rogers

Fudan University - Fanhai International School of Finance (FISF) ( email )

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Jonathan H. Wright

Johns Hopkins University - Department of Economics ( email )

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