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Measuring predictability: theory and macroeconomic applications

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Author Info
Francis X. Diebold (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297, USA, and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Lutz Kilian (Department of Economics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220, USA, and Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, UK)

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Abstract

We propose a measure of predictability based on the ratio of the expected loss of a short-run forecast to the expected loss of a long-run forecast. This predictability measure can be tailored to the forecast horizons of interest, and it allows for general loss functions, univariate or multivariate information sets, and covariance stationary or difference stationary processes. We propose a simple estimator, and we suggest resampling methods for inference. We then provide several macroeconomic applications. First, we illustrate the implementation of predictability measures based on fitted parametric models for several US macroeconomic time series. Second, we analyze the internal propagation mechanism of a standard dynamic macroeconomic model by comparing the predictability of model inputs and model outputs. Third, we use predictability as a metric for assessing the similarity of data simulated from the model and actual data. Finally, we outline several non-parametric extensions of our approach. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Journal of Applied Econometrics.

Volume (Year): 16 (2001)
Issue (Month): 6 ()
Pages: 657-669
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Handle: RePEc:jae:japmet:v:16:y:2001:i:6:p:657-669

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References listed on IDEAS
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.:
  1. Lutz Kilian, 1998. "Small-Sample Confidence Intervals For Impulse Response Functions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 218-230, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Real-Business-Cycle Models and the Forecastable Movements in Output, Hours, and Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 71-89, March.
  3. Francis X. Diebold & Lutz Kilian & Marc Nerlove, 2006. "Time Series Analysis," PIER Working Paper Archive 06-019, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
    • Diebold, F.X. & Kilian, L. & Nerlove, M., 2006. "Time Series Analysis," Working Papers 28556, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. [Downloadable!]
  4. Cogley, Timothy & Nason, James M., 1995. "Effects of the Hodrick-Prescott filter on trend and difference stationary time series Implications for business cycle research," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 253-278. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Diebold, Francis X & Ohanian, Lee E & Berkowitz, Jeremy, 1998. "Dynamic Equilibrium Economies: A Framework for Comparing Models and Data," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 65(3), pages 433-51, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : II. New directions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 309-341. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Forni, Mario & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 1995. "Let's Get Real: A Dynamic Factor Analytical Approach to Disaggregated Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 1244, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-47, July-Sept. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Kilian, Lutz, 2001. "Impulse Response Analysis in Vector Autoregressions with Unknown Lag Order," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 161-79, April.
  12. Robert G. King & Mark W. Watson, 1995. "Money, prices, interest rates and the business cycle," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 95-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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  13. Christoffersen, Peter F. & Diebold, Francis X., 1997. "Optimal Prediction Under Asymmetric Loss," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(06), pages 808-817, December. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Barsky, Robert B., 1987. "The Fisher hypothesis and the forecastability and persistence of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-24, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2000. "Bootstrapping Autoregressive Processes with Possible Unit Roots," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0401, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
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  16. repec:cup:etheor:v:13:y:1997:i:6:p:808-17 is not listed on IDEAS
  17. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2002. "Bootstrapping Smooth Functions of Slope Parameters and Innovation Variances in VAR (∞) Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(2), pages 309-332, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Christoffersen, Peter F & Diebold, Francis X, 1996. "Further Results on Forecasting and Model Selection under Asymmetric Loss," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 561-71, Sept.-Oct. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Timothy Cogley & James M. Nason, 1993. "Output dynamics in real business cycle models," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 93-10, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
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  20. Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1996. "Inflation Indicators and Inflation Policy," NBER Working Papers 5161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Francis X. Diebold & Lutz Kilian, 1998. "Measuring Predictability: Theory and Macroeconomic Applications," Working Papers 98-16, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
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  22. Francis X. Diebold & Marc Nerlove, 1988. "Unit roots in economic time series: a selective survey," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 49, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  23. Diebold, Francis X & Senhadji, Abdelhak S, 1996. "The Uncertain Unit Root in Real GNP: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1291-98, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Lutz Kilian, 1998. "Confidence intervals for impulse responses under departures from normality," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-29. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  25. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 1995. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(3), pages 253-63, July.
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  26. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. " Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-617, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  28. Singleton, Kenneth J., 1988. "Econometric issues in the analysis of equilibrium business cycle models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 361-386. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

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.)

  1. Carlos Barrera-Chaupis, 2005. "Proyecciones desagregadas de la variación del índice de precios al consumidor (IPC), del índice de precios al por Mayor (IPM) y del Crecimiento del Producto Real (PBI)," Working Papers 2005-006, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú. [Downloadable!]
  2. Kirstin Hubrich & David F. Hendry, 2005. "Forecasting Aggregates by Disaggregates," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 270, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Athanasopoulos, George & Issler, João Victor & Guillén, Osmani Teixeira de Carvalho, 2005. "Forecasting Accuracy and Estimation Uncertainty using VAR Models with Short- and Long-Term Economic Restrictions: A Monte-Carlo Study," Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 589, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Sergio Nicoletti Altimari, 2001. "Does money lead inflation in the euro area?," Working Paper Series 063, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  5. Jonas Dovern, 2006. "Predicting GDP Components. Do Leading Indicators Increase Predictability?," Kiel Advanced Studies Working Papers 436, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  6. David F. Hendry & Kirstin Hubrich, 2006. "Forecasting economic aggregates by disaggregates," Working Paper Series 589, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Jeremy Berkowitz & Ionel Birgean & Lutz Kilian, 1999. "On the finite-sample accuracy of nonparametric resampling algorithms for economic time series," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-04, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Marc Brisson & Bryan Campbell & John Galbraith, 2001. "Forecasting Some Low-Predictability Time Series Using Diffusion Indices," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-46, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  9. Yoshua Bengio & François Gingras & Claude Nadeau, 2002. "On Out-of-Sample Statistics for Time-Series," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-51, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  10. Ionel Birgean & Lutz Kilian, 2002. "Data-Driven Nonparametric Spectral Density Estimators For Economic Time Series: A Monte Carlo Study," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 449-476. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. John G. Galbraith & Greg Tkacz, 2006. "How Far Can We Forecast? Forecast Content Horizons For Some Important Macroeconomic Time Series," Departmental Working Papers 2006-13, McGill University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. John W. Galbraith & Greg Tkacz, 2007. "Forecast Content And Content Horizons For Some Important Macroeconomic Time Series," Departmental Working Papers 2007-01, McGill University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Timothy Cogley & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Thomas J. Sargent, 2008. "Inflation-Gap Persistence in the U.S," NBER Working Papers 13749, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Francis X. Diebold & Lutz Kilian, 2001. "Measuring predictability: theory and macroeconomic applications," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(6), pages 657-669. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. António Brandão Moniz, 2008. "Assessing scenarios on the future of work," Enterprise and Work Innovation Studies, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, IET-Research Center on Enterprise and Work Innovation, Faculty of Science and Technology, vol. 4(4), pages 91-106, November. [Downloadable!]
  16. Francis X. Diebold, 1997. "The Past, Present, and Future of Macroeconomic Forecasting," NBER Working Papers 6290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  17. John Galbraith, 1999. "Content Horizons for Forecasts of Economic Time Series," CIRANO Working Papers 99s-17, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  18. Jean-Marie Dufour & Abderrahim Taamouti, 2008. "Short and long run causality measures: theory and inference," Economics Working Papers we083720, Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Economía. [Downloadable!]
  19. Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2009. "Do forecasters inform or reassure? Evaluation of the German real-time data," KOF Working papers 09-215, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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