Quantification of Ordinal Surveys and Rational Testing: An Application to the Colombian Monthly Survey of Economic Expectations

Cuantificaci\'{o}n de encuestas ordinales y pruebas de racionalidad: una aplicaci\'{o}n con la encuesta mensual de expectativas econ\'{o}micas

H\'{E}CTOR MANUEL Z\'{A}RATE1, KATHERINE S\'{A}NCHEZ2, MARGARITA MAR\'{I}N3

1Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Estad\'{i}stica, Bogot\'{a}, Colombia. Lecturer. Email: hmzarates@unal.edu.co
2Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Estad\'{i}stica, Bogot\'{a}, Colombia. MSc student. Email: ksanchezc@unal.edu.co
3Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Estad\'{i}stica, Bogot\'{a}, Colombia. MSc student. Email: mmarinj@unal.edu.co


Abstract

Expectations and perceptions obtained in surveys play an important role in designing the monetary policy. In this paper we construct continuous variables from the qualitative responses of the Colombian Economic Expectation Survey (EES). This survey examines the perceptions and expectations on different economic variables. We use the methods of quantification known as balance statistics, the Carlson-Parkin method, and a proposal developed by the Analysis Quantitative Regional (AQR) group of the University of Barcelona. Then, we later prove the predictive ability of these methods and reveal that the best method to use is the AQR. Once the quantification is made, we confirm the rationality of the expectations by testing four key hypotheses: unbiasedness, no autocorrelation, efficiency and orthogonality.

Key words: Rational Expectations, Survey, Quantification.


Resumen

En este art{\i}culo se cuantifican las respuestas cualitativas de la \textquotedblleft Encuesta Mensual de Expectativas Econ{o}micas (EMEE)\textquotedblright a trav{e}s de m{e}todos de conversi{o}n tradicionales como la estad{\i}stica del balance de Batchelor, el m{e}todo probabil{\i}stico propuesto por Carlson-Parkin (CP) y la propuesta del grupo de An{a}lisis Cuantitativo Regional (ACR) de la Universidad de Barcelona. Para las respuestas analizadas de esta encuesta se encontr{o} que el m{e}todo ACR registra el mejor desempe\~{n}o teniendo en cuenta su mejor capacidad predictiva. Estas cuantificaciones son posteriormente utilizadas en pruebas de racionalidad de expectativas que requieren la verificaci{o}n de cuatro hip{o}tesis fundamentales: insesgamiento, correlaci{o}n serial, eficiencia y ortogonalidad.

Palabras clave: cuantificación, encuestas, expectativas racionales.


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[Recibido en abril de 2011. Aceptado en marzo de 2012]

Este artículo se puede citar en LaTeX utilizando la siguiente referencia bibliográfica de BibTeX:

@ARTICLE{RCEv35n1a06,
    AUTHOR  = {Z\'{a}rate, H\'{e}ctor Manuel and S\'{a}nchez, Katherine and Mar\'{i}n, Margarita},
    TITLE   = {{Quantification of Ordinal Surveys and Rational Testing: An Application to the Colombian Monthly Survey of Economic Expectations}},
    JOURNAL = {Revista Colombiana de Estadística},
    YEAR    = {2012},
    volume  = {35},
    number  = {1},
    pages   = {77-108}
}