Central banks’ interest rate projections and forecast coordination

•We study whether central banks’ interest-rate projections affect private-sector forecasts.•We find that forecasters seem to anti-coordinate their forecasts.•Forecasts scatter around a consensus forecast and around projections.

We apply a simple test to study the effect of the publication of central banks’ interest-rate projections on the coordination of private-sector interest-rate forecasts. Our results indicate that the publication of interest-rate projections does not lead private-sector forecasters to coordinate their forecasts. In fact, private-sector forecasters rather seem to anti-coordinate, that is, they scatter their forecasts around a consensus forecast or around a central bank's interest-rate projections.