  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 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
didn't find enough evidences of publication bias.
