IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jforec/v3y2021i1p10-165d504406.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting Principles from Experience with Forecasting Competitions

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer L. Castle

    (Magdalen College and Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AU, UK)

  • Jurgen A. Doornik

    (Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, and Climate Econometrics, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK)

  • David F. Hendry

    (Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, and Climate Econometrics, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK)

Abstract

Economic forecasting is difficult, largely because of the many sources of nonstationarity influencing observational time series. Forecasting competitions aim to improve the practice of economic forecasting by providing very large data sets on which the efficacy of forecasting methods can be evaluated. We consider the general principles that seem to be the foundation for successful forecasting, and show how these are relevant for methods that did well in the M4 competition. We establish some general properties of the M4 data set, which we use to improve the basic benchmark methods, as well as the Card method that we created for our submission to that competition. A data generation process is proposed that captures the salient features of the annual data in M4.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David F. Hendry, 2021. "Forecasting Principles from Experience with Forecasting Competitions," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-28, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jforec:v:3:y:2021:i:1:p:10-165:d:504406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/3/1/10/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9394/3/1/10/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter R. Winters, 1960. "Forecasting Sales by Exponentially Weighted Moving Averages," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 324-342, April.
    2. Hendry, David F. & Mizon, Grayham E., 2014. "Unpredictability in economic analysis, econometric modeling and forecasting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 186-195.
    3. Smyl, Slawek, 2020. "A hybrid method of exponential smoothing and recurrent neural networks for time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 75-85.
    4. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B. & Snyder, Ralph D. & Grose, Simone, 2002. "A state space framework for automatic forecasting using exponential smoothing methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 439-454.
    5. E ric E ngler & B ent N ielsen, 2009. "The empirical process of autoregressive residuals," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 12(2), pages 367-381, July.
    6. Luigi Ermini & David F. Hendry, 2008. "Log Income vs. Linear Income: An Application of the Encompassing Principle," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(s1), pages 807-827, December.
    7. Kim, Sungil & Kim, Heeyoung, 2016. "A new metric of absolute percentage error for intermittent demand forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 669-679.
    8. Castle, Jennifer L. & Fawcett, Nicholas W.P. & Hendry, David F., 2010. "Forecasting with equilibrium-correction models during structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(1), pages 25-36, September.
    9. Makridakis, Spyros & Chatfield, Chris & Hibon, Michele & Lawrence, Michael & Mills, Terence & Ord, Keith & Simmons, LeRoy F., 1993. "The M2-competition: A real-time judgmentally based forecasting study," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 5-22, April.
    10. Hyndman, Rob J., 2020. "A brief history of forecasting competitions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 7-14.
    11. Goodwin, Paul & Lawton, Richard, 1999. "On the asymmetry of the symmetric MAPE," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 405-408, October.
    12. Bergmeir, Christoph & Hyndman, Rob J. & Benítez, José M., 2016. "Bagging exponential smoothing methods using STL decomposition and Box–Cox transformation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 303-312.
    13. Clements,Michael & Hendry,David, 1998. "Forecasting Economic Time Series," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521634809.
    14. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Kouloumos, Andreas & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Makridakis, Spyros, 2020. "Are forecasting competitions data representative of the reality?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 37-53.
    15. Kang, Yanfei & Hyndman, Rob J. & Smith-Miles, Kate, 2017. "Visualising forecasting algorithm performance using time series instance spaces," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 345-358.
    16. Hyndman, Rob J. & Billah, Baki, 2003. "Unmasking the Theta method," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 287-290.
    17. Makridakis, Spyros, 1993. "Accuracy measures: theoretical and practical concerns," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 527-529, December.
    18. Everette S. Gardner, Jr. & Ed. Mckenzie, 1985. "Forecasting Trends in Time Series," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(10), pages 1237-1246, October.
    19. Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David F. Hendry, 2020. "Short-term forecasting of the Coronavirus Pandemic - 2020-04-27," Economics Papers 2020-W06, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    20. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    21. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2020. "The M4 Competition: 100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-74.
    22. Makridakis, Spyros & Hibon, Michele, 2000. "The M3-Competition: results, conclusions and implications," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 451-476.
    23. Spyros Makridakis & Evangelos Spiliotis & Vassilios Assimakopoulos, 2018. "Statistical and Machine Learning forecasting methods: Concerns and ways forward," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-26, March.
    24. Gneiting, Tilmann & Raftery, Adrian E., 2007. "Strictly Proper Scoring Rules, Prediction, and Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 359-378, March.
    25. Doornik, Jurgen A. & Castle, Jennifer L. & Hendry, David F., 2020. "Card forecasts for M4," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 129-134.
    26. Koning, Alex J. & Franses, Philip Hans & Hibon, Michele & Stekler, H.O., 2005. "The M3 competition: Statistical tests of the results," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 397-409.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Voyant, Cyril & Notton, Gilles & Duchaud, Jean-Laurent & Gutiérrez, Luis Antonio García & Bright, Jamie M. & Yang, Dazhi, 2022. "Benchmarks for solar radiation time series forecasting," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 747-762.
    2. Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David F. Hendry, 2021. "Forecasting Facing Economic Shifts, Climate Change and Evolving Pandemics," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Alessia Paccagnini, 2021. "Editorial for Special Issue “New Frontiers in Forecasting the Business Cycle and Financial Markets”," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(3), pages 1-3, July.
    4. Jurgen A. Doornik & Jennifer L. Castle & David F. Hendry, 2021. "Modeling and forecasting the COVID‐19 pandemic time‐series data," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2070-2087, September.
    5. Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David F. Hendry, 2021. "Selecting a Model for Forecasting," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, June.
    6. Jennifer Castle & Takamitsu Kurita, 2022. "Structural relationships between cryptocurrency prices and monetary policy indicators," Economics Series Working Papers 972, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    2. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2020. "The M4 Competition: 100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-74.
    3. Jennifer L. Castle & Jurgen A. Doornik & David Hendry, 2019. "Some forecasting principles from the M4 competition," Economics Papers 2019-W01, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    4. Semenoglou, Artemios-Anargyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Makridakis, Spyros & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Investigating the accuracy of cross-learning time series forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1072-1084.
    5. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "M5 accuracy competition: Results, findings, and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1346-1364.
    6. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Chen, Zhi & Gaba, Anil & Tsetlin, Ilia & Winkler, Robert L., 2022. "The M5 uncertainty competition: Results, findings and conclusions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1365-1385.
    7. Kang, Yanfei & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Petropoulos, Fotios & Athiniotis, Nikolaos & Li, Feng & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Déjà vu: A data-centric forecasting approach through time series cross-similarity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 719-731.
    8. Fotios Petropoulos & Enno Siemsen, 2023. "Forecast Selection and Representativeness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2672-2690, May.
    9. Makridakis, Spyros & Hyndman, Rob J. & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2020. "Forecasting in social settings: The state of the art," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 15-28.
    10. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Makridakis, Spyros, 2020. "Generalizing the Theta method for automatic forecasting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(2), pages 550-558.
    11. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2022. "Predicting/hypothesizing the findings of the M5 competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1337-1345.
    12. Bojer, Casper Solheim & Meldgaard, Jens Peder, 2021. "Kaggle forecasting competitions: An overlooked learning opportunity," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 587-603.
    13. Wang, Xiaoqian & Hyndman, Rob J. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2023. "Forecast combinations: An over 50-year review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1518-1547.
    14. Petropoulos, Fotios & Makridakis, Spyros & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos, 2014. "‘Horses for Courses’ in demand forecasting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 237(1), pages 152-163.
    15. Rajapaksha, Dilini & Bergmeir, Christoph & Hyndman, Rob J., 2023. "LoMEF: A framework to produce local explanations for global model time series forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1424-1447.
    16. Fiorucci, Jose A. & Pellegrini, Tiago R. & Louzada, Francisco & Petropoulos, Fotios & Koehler, Anne B., 2016. "Models for optimising the theta method and their relationship to state space models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1151-1161.
    17. Sbrana, Giacomo & Silvestrini, Andrea, 2022. "Random coefficient state-space model: Estimation and performance in M3–M4 competitions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 352-366.
    18. Alysha M De Livera, 2010. "Automatic forecasting with a modified exponential smoothing state space framework," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 10/10, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    19. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Makridakis, Spyros & Kaltsounis, Anastasios & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2021. "Product sales probabilistic forecasting: An empirical evaluation using the M5 competition data," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    20. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & de Menezes, Lilian M., 2022. "Forecasting natural gas consumption using Bagging and modified regularization techniques," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jforec:v:3:y:2021:i:1:p:10-165:d:504406. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.