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Forecasting With Nonspurious Factors in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series

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  • Yohei Yamamoto

Abstract

This study examines the practical implications of the fact that structural changes in factor loadings can produce spurious factors (or irrelevant factors) in forecasting exercises. These spurious factors can induce an overfitting problem in factor-augmented forecasting models. To address this concern, we propose a method to estimate nonspurious factors by identifying the set of response variables that have no structural changes in their factor loadings. Our theoretical results show that the obtained set may include a fraction of unstable response variables. However, the fraction is so small that the original factors are able to be identified and estimated consistently. Moreover, using this approach, we find that a significant portion of 132 U.S. macroeconomic time series have structural changes in their factor loadings. Although traditional principal components provide eight or more factors, there are significantly fewer nonspurious factors. The forecasts using the nonspurious factors can significantly improve out-of-sample performance.

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  • Yohei Yamamoto, 2016. "Forecasting With Nonspurious Factors in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 81-106, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jnlbes:v:34:y:2016:i:1:p:81-106
    DOI: 10.1080/07350015.2015.1004071
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    1. Marc P. Giannoni & Jean Boivin, 2005. "DSGE Models in a Data-Rich Environment," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 431, Society for Computational Economics.
    2. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis," NBER Working Papers 11467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Xu Cheng & Zhipeng Liao & Frank Schorfheide, 2016. "Shrinkage Estimation of High-Dimensional Factor Models with Structural Instabilities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1511-1543.
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    Cited by:

    1. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Hartigan, Luke, 2016. "Is the Assumption of Linearity in Factor Models too Strong in Practice?," Working Papers 2072/261531, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Bai, Jushan & Han, Xu & Shi, Yutang, 2020. "Estimation and inference of change points in high-dimensional factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 66-100.
    3. Yohei Yamamoto & Naoko Hara, 2022. "Identifying factor‐augmented vector autoregression models via changes in shock variances," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 722-745, June.
    4. Luke Hartigan, 2015. "Changes in the Factor Structure of the U.S. Economy: Permanent Breaks or Business Cycle Regimes?," Discussion Papers 2015-17, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    5. Esther Ruiz & Pilar Poncela, 2022. "Factor Extraction in Dynamic Factor Models: Kalman Filter Versus Principal Components," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 12(2), pages 121-231, November.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C38 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Classification Methdos; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Analysis
    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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