Forecasting using "diffusion indices" has received a good deal of attention in recent years. The idea is to use the common factors estimated from a large panel of data to help forecast the series of interest. This paper assesses the extent to which the forecasts are influenced by (i) how the factors are estimated and/or (ii) how the forecasts are formulated. We find that for simple data-generating processes and when the dynamic structure of the data is known, no one method stands out to be systematically good or bad. All five methods considered have rather similar properties, though some methods are better in long-horizon forecasts, especially when the number of time series observations is small. However, when the dynamic structure is unknown and for more complex dynamics and error structures such as the ones encountered in practice, one method stands out to have smaller forecast errors. This method forecasts the series of interest directly, rather than the common and idiosyncratic components separately, and it leaves the dynamics of the factors unspecified. By imposing fewer constraints, and having to estimate a smaller number of auxiliary parameters, the method appears to be less vulnerable to misspecification, leading to improved forecasts.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C3 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Other Model Applications E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.