Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Approximately Normal Tests for Equal Predictive Accuracy in Nested Models

Contents:

Author Info

  • Kenneth D. West
  • Todd Clark

Abstract

Forecast evaluation often compares a parsimonious null model to a larger model that nests the null model. Under the null that the parsimonious model generates the data, the larger model introduces noise into its forecasts by estimating parameters whose population values are zero. We observe that the mean squared prediction error (MSPE) from the parsimonious model is therefore expected to be smaller than that of the larger model. We describe how to adjust MSPEs to account for this noise. We propose applying standard methods (West (1996)) to test whether the adjusted mean squared error difference is zero. We refer to nonstandard limiting distributions derived in Clark and McCracken (2001, 2005a) to argue that use of standard normal critical values will yield actual sizes close to, but a little less than, nominal size. Simulation evidence supports our recommended procedure.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/t0326.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Technical Working Papers with number 0326.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Aug 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberte:0326

Note: AP EFG TWP
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Corradi, Valentina & Swanson, Norman R., 2002. "A consistent test for nonlinear out of sample predictive accuracy," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 353-381, October.
  2. Athanasios Orphanides & Simon van Norden, 2004. "The reliability of inflation forecasts based on output gap estimates in real time," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-68, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  3. Campbell, John, 2001. "Why Long Horizons? A Study of Power Against Persistent Alternatives," Scholarly Articles 3196341, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  4. Kilian, Lutz, 1999. "Exchange Rates and Monetary Fundamentals: What Do We Learn from Long-Horizon Regressions?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(5), pages 491-510, Sept.-Oct.
  5. Giacomini, Raffaella & White, Halbert, 2003. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt5jk0j5jh, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
  6. Mototsugu Shintani, 2010. "Nonlinear Forecasting Analysis Using Diffusion Indexes: An Application to Japan," Levine's Working Paper Archive 506439000000000168, David K. Levine.
  7. repec:cup:macdyn:v:5:y:2001:i:4:p:598-620 is not listed on IDEAS
  8. Todd E. Clark & Michael McCracken, 1999. "Tests of Equal Forecast Accuracy and Encompassing for Nested Models," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 1241, Society for Computational Economics.
  9. Lutz Kilian & Atsushi Inoue, 2002. "In-Sample or out-of-sample tests of predictability: which one should we use?," Working Paper Series 195, European Central Bank.
  10. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2006. "Using out-of-sample mean squared prediction errors to test the martingale difference hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 155-186.
  11. West, Kenneth D, 2001. "Tests for Forecast Encompassing When Forecasts Depend on Estimated Regression Parameters," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(1), pages 29-33, January.
  12. Lettau, Martin & Ludvigson, Sydney, 1999. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth and Expected Stock Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 2223, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  13. Michael W. McCracken & Todd E. Clark, 2003. "The Predictive Content of the Output Gap for Inflation: Resolving In-Sample and Out-of-Sample Evidence," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 183, Society for Computational Economics.
  14. Harvey, David I & Leybourne, Stephen J & Newbold, Paul, 1998. "Tests for Forecast Encompassing," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(2), pages 254-59, April.
  15. West, Kenneth D, 1996. "Asymptotic Inference about Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1067-84, September.
  16. Francis X. Diebold & Canlin Li, 2002. "Forecasting the Term Structure of Government Bond Yields," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 02-34, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
  17. Ashley, R & Granger, C W J & Schmalensee, R, 1980. "Advertising and Aggregate Consumption: An Analysis of Causality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1149-67, July.
  18. Nelson, Charles R & Kim, Myung J, 1993. " Predictable Stock Returns: The Role of Small Sample Bias," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 641-61, June.
  19. Amit Goyal & Ivo Welch, 1999. "Predicting the Equity Premium with Dividend Ratios," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2437, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2002.
  20. Massimiliano Marcellino & James Stock & Mark Watson, 2005. "A Comparison of Direct and Iterated Multistep AR Methods for Forecasting Macroeconomic Time Series," Working Papers 285, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
  21. Valentina Corradi & Norman R. Swanson, 2007. "Nonparametric Bootstrap Procedures For Predictive Inference Based On Recursive Estimation Schemes," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(1), pages 67-109, 02.
  22. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. " Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-28, September.
  23. Tauchen, George, 2001. "The bias of tests for a risk premium in forward exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 695-704, December.
  24. Todd Clark & Michael McCracken, 2005. "Evaluating Direct Multistep Forecasts," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 24(4), pages 369-404.
  25. West, Kenneth D., 2006. "Forecast Evaluation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier.
  26. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-44, January.
  27. John Y. Campbell & Samuel B. Thompson, 2005. "Predicting the Equity Premium Out of Sample: Can Anything Beat the Historical Average?," NBER Working Papers 11468, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  28. Andrew Ang & Monika Piazzesi & Min Wei, 2003. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  29. Whitney K. Newey & Kenneth D. West, 1986. "A Simple, Positive Semi-Definite, Heteroskedasticity and AutocorrelationConsistent Covariance Matrix," NBER Technical Working Papers 0055, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  30. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 2002. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Diffusion Indexes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 147-62, April.
  31. McCracken, Michael W., 2007. "Asymptotics for out of sample tests of Granger causality," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 719-752, October.
  32. Chong, Yock Y & Hendry, David F, 1986. "Econometric Evaluation of Linear Macro-Economic Models," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 671-90, August.
  33. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Forecasting output and inflation: the role of asset prices," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  34. Marcellino, Massimiliano & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2003. "Macroeconomic forecasting in the Euro area: Country specific versus area-wide information," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-18, February.
  35. Jon Faust & John H. Rogers & Jonathan H. Wright, 2000. "News and noise in G-7 GDP announcements," International Finance Discussion Papers 690, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  36. Mark W. Watson & James H. Stock, 2004. "Combination forecasts of output growth in a seven-country data set," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 405-430.
  37. Ing, Ching-Kang, 2003. "Multistep Prediction In Autoregressive Processes," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(02), pages 254-279, April.
  38. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October.
  39. Robert F. Stambaugh, 1999. "Predictive Regressions," NBER Technical Working Papers 0240, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  40. Mark, Nelson C, 1995. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: Evidence on Long-Horizon Predictability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 201-18, March.
  41. Michael Cooper & Roberto C. Gutierrez, Jr. & Bill Marcum, 2005. "On the Predictability of Stock Returns in Real Time," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 469-500, March.
  42. Norman R. Swanson, 2000. "An Out of Sample Test for Granger Causality," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0362, Econometric Society.
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 in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberte:0326

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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