Do private sector forecasters chase after IMF or OECD forecasts?

• First study analyzing the impact of IMF and OECD forecasts on professional forecasts.
• Data set comprises more than 60,000 professional forecasts for the G7 countries.
• Forecasters intentionally place their forecasts away from IMF and OECD forecasts.
• Ability of international organizations to manage private sector expectations.

In this paper we use data from the Consensus Economics forecast poll to explore the strategic behavior of private sector forecasters with respect to forecasts published by the IMF and the OECD. We focus on four key macroeconomic variables for the G7 countries to analyze whether private sector forecasters herd towards the projections published by these international organizations. Our empirical results show that an anti-herding strategy of private sector forecasters is prevalent for the G7 countries, i.e., they intentionally place their forecasts away from the forecasts published by the IMF and the OECD. In addition, we find that the strategic behavior of private sector forecasters lasts roughly 3 months.