Greenbook (FED)

Abstract

Several data sets contain the projections from the Greenbooks of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The Greenbook is produced before each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Using an assumption about monetary policy, the Research staff at the Board of Governors prepares projections about how the economy will fare in the future. These projections are made available to the public after a lag of five years. This data set contains Greenbook projections for many of the variables also forecast in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). The variables include real GDP and its components, nominal GDP, five measures of inflation, unemployment, industrial production, and housing starts. Altogether, the Philadelphia Fed's Greenbook Data Set includes Greenbook projections for 15 variables. Previously, we recorded the projections from four Greenbooks each year with publication dates that were aligned (as closely as possible) with the quarterly deadline dates of the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Now, we record all Greenbooks in the data set. The new data set also includes Greenbook historical values as well as projections.