Futures Past. Economic Forecasting in the 20th and 21st Century

Ulrich Fritsche is an economist and full professor of economics, especially applied economics, at Universität Hamburg, Germany. His research interests include forecasting methods, macroeconomic expectation formation of households, and experts and time series econometrics.Roman Köster is an economic historian and a currently visiting professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. His research interests include the history of economic crises and the history of economic thought.Laetitia Lenel is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of history at Humboldt-Universität, Berlin. Her research project explores the history of business forecasting in Europe and the USA in the 20th century.

• Table of Contents - Introduction: Laetitia Lenel, Roman Köster, and Ulrich Fritsche - Continuities and Discontinuities in Economic Forecasting: Tara M. Sinclair - Measuring and Managing Expectations: Consumer Confidence as an Economic Indicator, 1920s–1970s: Jan Logemann - The Economist as Futurologist: The Making and the Public - Reception of the Perspektivstudien in Switzerland, 1964–1975: Marion Ronca - The Janus Face of Inflation Targeting: How Governing Market Expectations of the Future Imprisons Monetary Policy in a Normalized Present: Timo Walter - Social Interaction, Emotion, and Economic Forecasting: Werner Reichmann - The Dynamics of Expectations: A Sequential Perspective on Macroeconomic Forecasting: Olivier Pilmis - Never Change a Losing Horse?: On Adaptations in German Forecasting after the Great Financial Crisis: Jörg Döpke, Ulrich Fritsche, and Gabi Waldhof