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Measuring predictability: theory and macroeconomic applications

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Author Info
Francis X. Diebold
Lutz Kilian

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Abstract

The authors 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 stationary or nonstationary data. The authors propose a simple estimator and suggest resampling methods for inference. They then provide several macroeconomic applications. First, on the basis of fitted parametric models, the authors assess the predictability of a variety of macroeconomic series. Second, they analyze the internal propagation mechanism of a standard dynamic macroeconomic model by comparing predictability of model inputs and model outputs. Third, they use predictability as a metric for assessing the similarity of data simulated from the model and actual data. Finally, the authors sketch several promising directions for future research.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in its series Working Papers with number 97-23.

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Date of creation: 1997
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:97-23

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Keywords: Forecasting

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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!]
  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)
    Other versions:
  6. 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)
  7. 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)
  8. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November. [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. Laurence Ball & Stephen G. Cecchetti, 1991. "Inflation and Uncertainty at Short and Long Horizons," NBER Reprints 1522, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  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. 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)
  14. Atsushi Inoue & Lutz Kilian, 2000. "Bootstrapping Autoregressive Processes with Possible Unit Roots," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0401, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. repec:cup:etheor:v:13:y:1997:i:6:p:808-17 is not listed on IDEAS
  16. 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)
  17. 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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  18. Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 1997. "Optimal prediction under asymmetric loss," Working Papers 97-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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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)
  21. 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.).
  22. 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)
  23. 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)
  24. 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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  25. Fama, Eugene F, 1991. " Efficient Capital Markets: II," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1575-617, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. 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)
  27. 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. Kirstin Hubrich & David F. Hendry, 2005. "Forecasting Aggregates by Disaggregates," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 270, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jonas Dovern, 2006. "Predicting GDP Components. Do Leading Indicators Increase Predictability?," Kiel Advanced Studies Working Papers 436, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  3. David F. Hendry & Kirstin Hubrich, 2006. "Forecasting economic aggregates by disaggregates," Working Paper Series 589, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. 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:
  5. 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:
  6. 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!]
  7. 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:
  8. 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)
  9. Osmani Teixeira de Carvalho Guillén & João Victor Issler & George Athanasopoulos, 2005. "Forecasting Accuracy and Estimation Uncertainty Using VAR Models with Short- and Long-Term Economic Restrictions: A Monte-Carlo Study," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 15/05, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. 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:
  11. John Galbraith, 1999. "Content Horizons for Forecasts of Economic Time Series," CIRANO Working Papers 99s-17, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. 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!]
  13. Sergio Nicoletti Altimari, 2001. "Does money lead inflation in the euro area?," Working Paper Series 063, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  14. Marc Brisson & Bryan Campbell & John Galbraith, 2001. "Forecasting Some Low-Predictability Time Series Using Diffusion Indices," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-46, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  15. Yoshua Bengio & François Gingras & Claude Nadeau, 2002. "On Out-of-Sample Statistics for Time-Series," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-51, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
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