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Abstract
This study sought to determine whether monthly revisions of U.S. Department of Agriculture
current-year corn and soybean yield forecasts are correlated and whether this correlation is
associated with crop size. An ex-ante measure of crop size based on percent deviation of the
current estimate from out-of-sample trend is used in efficiency tests based on the Nordhaus
framework for fixed-event forecasts. Results show that available information about crop size
is generally efficiently incorporated in these forecasts. Thus, although this pattern may appear
obvious to market analysts in hindsight, it is largely based on new information and hence
difficult to anticipate.