Philadelphia Fed Releases Past FOMC Projections

August 6, 2001

For release: August 6, 2001
Contact: Marilyn Wimp, 215 574-4197

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has announced that historical data on economic projections prepared by the staff of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are now available on its web site at http://www.philadelphiafed.org/econ/forecast/
greenbookdatasets.html. The projections were produced by Board staff in preparation for Federal Open Market Committee meetings and forwarded to the FOMC in a document known as the Greenbook. This information has been available to the public after a five-year lag, but this marks the first time that it is available on the Internet, allowing journalists, researchers, and the public easy access to economic projections from January 1978 to December 1995. The data set is posted on the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's web site with the permission of the Board of Governors.

A closely related data set prepared by researchers at the Philadelphia Fed contains Greenbook projections from November 1965 to November 1995. This data set covers just two economic variables, output and inflation, but goes back further in time.

The Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia maintains two long-term forecasting surveys, the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Livingston Survey, which is the oldest continuous report of economists' expectations. Both are available on the Philadelphia Fed's web site.

Recently, the Philadelphia Fed's Research Department developed a real-time data set, consisting of a number of macroeconomic variables that can be used in conjunction with the Greenbook data. "Real-time" data are those available at a point in time, prior to any subsequent adjustments or revisions. Researchers who evaluate and compare past economic conditions will find these data sets to be valuable tools for their macroeconomic work, and all are available on the Philadelphia Fed's web site.

The real-time variables, presented at three-month intervals beginning with November 1965, include real output, measures of the money supply, and the unemployment rate. The real-time data set can be accessed at www.philadelphiafed.org/econ/forecast/
reaindex.html. Links to research papers that describe the data and a bibliography of research papers that deal with real-time data issues are also available.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia serves depository institutions in eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware by supplying cash to these banks and thrifts, supervising them, collecting and processing nearly 5 million checks daily, wiring money and securities nationwide, and participating in monetary policymaking.

Philadelphia Fed Releases Past FOMC Projections

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