Title: Benchmark revisions and the U.S. personal saving rate
Description: "Initially published estimates of the personal saving  rate from 1965 Q3 to 1999 Q2, which averaged 5.3 percent, have been revised up  2.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, as we document.  We show that much of the  initial variation in the personal saving rate across time was meaningless  noise.  Nominal disposable personal income has been revised upward an average of  8.4 percent: one dollar in 12 was originally missing! We use both conventional  and real-time estimates of the personal saving rate to forecast real disposable  income, gross domestic product, and personal consumption and show that the  personal saving rate in real-time almost invariably makes forecasts worse.   Thus, while the personal saving rate may have some forecasting power once we  know the true saving rate, as Campbell (1987) and Ireland (1995) have argued,  as a practical matter it is useless to forecasters"--Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia web site.