The evolution of consensus in macroeconomic forecasting

When professional forecasters repeatedly forecast macroeconomic variables, their forecasts may converge over time towards a consensus. The evolution of consensus is analysed with Blue Chip data under a parametric polynomial decay function that permits flexibility in the decay path. For the most part, this specification fits the data. We test whether forecast differences decay to zero at the same point in time for a panel of forecasters, and discuss possible explanations for this, along with its implications for studies using panels of forecasters.