Abstract:

The primary goal of this study is doing a meta-analysis research on two groups of published studies. First, the ones that focus on the evaluation of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasts and second, the ones that evaluate the market reactions to the USDA forecasts. We investigate four questions. 1) How the previously published studies evaluate the accuracy of the USDA forecasts? 2) How they evaluate the market reactions to the USDA forecasts? 3) Is there any heterogeneity in the results of the mentioned studies? 4) Is there any publication bias? About the first question, while some researchers argue that the forecasts are unbiased, most of them maintain that they are biased, inefficient, not optimal, or not rational. About the second question, while a few studies claim that the forecasts are not newsworthy, most of them maintain that they are newsworthy, provide useful information, and cause market reactions. About the third and the fourth questions, based on our findings, there are some clues that the results of the studies are heterogeneous, but we could not find enough evidences of publication bias.

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