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Colm Bates
Economics
- Division
Prices & Costs
- Current Position
-
Senior Economist
- Fields of interest
-
Labour Economics,Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
- Education
- 2007-2008
Master of Advanced Study in Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- 2002-2006
BA Moderatorship in Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Professional experience
- 2019-2023
Senior Economist-Statistician, Directorate General Economics, European Central Bank
- 2015-2019
Economist-Statistician, Monetary and Economic Statistics, Directorate General Statistics, European Central Bank
- 2012-2015
Economist-Statistician, Financial Statistics, Directorate General Statistics, European Central Bank
- 2009-2011
Research Analyst, Monetary and Financial Statistics, Directorate General Statistics, European Central Bank
- 16 December 2024
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 364Details
- Abstract
- This paper looks back on the 25-year history of the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). Since its launch in the first quarter of 1999, it has served as an important input for policymaking and analysis, especially over the past five years, where the euro area has, following a period of low inflation, navigated a global pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and an unprecedented surge in inflation. The survey has evolved over time and provides not only a long time series of economic expectations and forecasts, but also valuable insights on key topical issues and on economic risks and uncertainties. We show that, for each of the three main macroeconomic variables forecast – HICP inflation, real GDP growth and the unemployment rate – the track record of the ECB SPF in forecasting has been broadly comparable to that of the Eurosystem. In addition, its combination of quantitative point forecasts and probability distributions with qualitative explanations has provided useful input for macroeconomic analysis. Beyond analyses of the forecasts for the main macroeconomic variables, there are also two further sections that examine the technical assumptions (oil prices, policy rates, exchange rates and wages) underlying SPF expectations and an analysis and assessment of measures of macroeconomic uncertainty. Technical assumptions are shown to account for the lion’s share of the variance in the inflation forecast errors, while uncertainty is shown to have increased considerably relative to that which prevailed during the early years of the SPF (1999-2008). Looking ahead, the SPF – with its long track record, its large and broad panel (spanning both financial and non-financial forecasters) and committed panellists – will undoubtedly continue to provide timely and useful insights for the ECB’s policymakers, macroeconomic experts, economic researchers and the wider public.
- JEL Code
- D84 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Expectations, Speculations
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E37 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
E66 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook→General Outlook and Conditions
- 29 October 2024
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 7, 2024Details
- Abstract
- Consumer perceptions of the main drivers of inflation can affect their inflation expectations and, in turn, their economic behaviour. The results of the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Survey (CES) for March 2024 reveal that most euro area consumers attribute inflation primarily to input costs, followed by profits and wages. However, the proportion of consumers identifying wages as the main driver of inflation has increased since June 2023, with this perception being most pronounced in countries experiencing significant wage growth. These evolving perceptions highlight the need to monitor shifts in inflation narratives and their potential impact on inflation expectations.
- JEL Code
- D11 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Theory
D84 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty→Expectations, Speculations
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
- 25 September 2024
- ECONOMIC BULLETIN - BOXEconomic Bulletin Issue 6, 2024Details
- Abstract
- Wage indicators give policymakers a key perspective on the outlook for inflation through the effect of wages on the price-setting of firms and on the consumption behaviour of households. This box studies recent developments in wage indicators, with a particular focus on wage drift, which has recently been in decline. The moderation of wage drift is key to explaining the easing of growth in compensation per employee. This is due to negotiated wage growth taking over the role of achieving inflation compensation from wage drift. The recovery of average hours worked after the pandemic had also been pushing the wage drift up, but this impact has weakened recently.
- JEL Code
- E24 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy→Employment, Unemployment, Wages, Intergenerational Income Distribution, Aggregate Human Capital
J30 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs→General
J52 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Labor?Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining→Dispute Resolution: Strikes, Arbitration, and Mediation, Collective Bargaining
- 19 April 2017
- OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES - No. 186Details
- Abstract
- This report updates and extends earlier assessments of quantitative inflation perceptions and expectations of consumers in the euro area and the EU using an anonymised micro data set collected by the European Commission in the context of the Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys. Confirming earlier findings, consumers' quantitative estimates of inflation are found to be higher than actual HICP (Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices) inflation over the entire sample period (2004-2015). The analysis shows that European consumers hold different opinions of inflation depending on their income, age, education and gender. Although many of the features highlighted for the EU and the euro area aggregates are valid across individual Member States, differences exist also at the country level. Despite the higher inflation estimates, there is a high level of co-movement between measured and estimated (perceived/expected) inflation. Even respondents providing estimates largely above actual HICP inflation, demonstrate understanding of the relative level of inflation during both high and low inflation periods. Based on these economically plausible results, the report concludes that further work should be devoted to defining concrete aggregate indicators of consumers' quantitative inflation perceptions and expectations on the basis of the dataset used in this study. Moreover, it outlines a number of future research topics that can be addressed by exploiting the enormous potential of the data set.
- JEL Code
- D8 : Microeconomics→Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
D12 : Microeconomics→Household Behavior and Family Economics→Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
- 2024
- 5th Joint BoC - ECB - NY Fed Conference
- 2020
- Economic Bulletin, Issue 8, ECB