Replication Files for "Consumer Attitudes and Their Forecasting Power for Consumer Spending,"
 by M. Barnes and G. Olivei.


PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PROGRAMS ARE IN TSP AND RATS: You will need these programs to generate the results.


The files will run as they are if the five folders are placed under " C:\BO_JMCB\ " Otherwise the directories will need to be edited for the 
programs to find the data files.  


The folder "PRIN" contains the program "PRIN_M.tsp" which should be run first to obtain the three summary measures from the Surveys of Consumers. 
This folder also contains a subfolder with the FIGURES in the paper, which are based on the summary measures estimated in "PRIN_M.tsp". 


The other folders:

"TABLE1" 
"TABLE2" 
"TABLE3" 
"TABLE4" 

replicate the results in the four tables in the paper. 



In the folder "TABLE1," the programs:

"Table 1 in sample.tsp"
"Table 1 pseudo out of sample.tsp"
"Table 1 POST 2007 pseudo out of sample.tsp"

generate the results found in columns "In-Sample," "Pseudo-Out-of-Sample," and "Post-2007" in Table 1. The Diebold and Mariano tests
associated with the table are found in the subfolder "DMTest." The programs for the Diebold and Mariano tests need to be run in RATS.



In the folder "TABLE2," the programs:

"Table 2 in sample.tsp"
"Table 2 pseudo out of sample.tsp"
"Table 2 POST 2007 pseudo out of sample.tsp"

generate the results found in columns "In-Sample," "Pseudo-Out-of-Sample," and "Post-2007" in Table 2. 



In the folder "TABLE3," the program:

"Table 3 in sample.tsp" generate the results found in the column "In-Sample" in Table 3. 
The pseudo-out-of-sample and post-2007 results in the table are divided by forecaster: Blue Chip, SPF (Survey of Professional Frecasters), and 
Greenbook from the Board of Governonrs of the Federal Reserve. Whenever the exercise is run for the post-2007 period, the file will have "POST 2007"
in the name. 



The folder "TABLE4," contains the programs to replicate Table 4 in the paper, and the files are structured in the same way as in the "TABLE3" folder.
 
   