IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/tecipa-284.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Learning, Forecasting and Structural Breaks

Author

Listed:
  • John M Maheu
  • Stephen Gordon

Abstract

We provide a general methodology for forecasting in the presence of structural breaks induced by unpredictable changes to model parameters. Bayesian methods of learning and model comparison are used to derive a predictive density that takes into account the possibility that a break will occur before the next observation. Estimates for the posterior distribution of the most recent break are generated as a by-product of our procedure. We discuss the importance of using priors that accurately reflect the econometrician's opinions as to what constitutes a plausible forecast. Several applications to macroeconomic time-series data demonstrate the usefulness of our procedure.

Suggested Citation

  • John M Maheu & Stephen Gordon, 2007. "Learning, Forecasting and Structural Breaks," Working Papers tecipa-284, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-284.pdf
    File Function: Main Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chib, Siddhartha, 2001. "Markov chain Monte Carlo methods: computation and inference," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 57, pages 3569-3649, Elsevier.
    2. John Geweke, 1994. "Bayesian comparison of econometric models," Working Papers 532, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    3. Ghysels, Eric & Guay, Alain & Hall, Alastair, 1998. "Predictive tests for structural change with unknown breakpoint," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 209-233, February.
    4. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    5. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2002. "Market timing and return prediction under model instability," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 9(5), pages 495-510, December.
    6. Giordani, Paolo & Kohn, Robert, 2008. "Efficient Bayesian Inference for Multiple Change-Point and Mixture Innovation Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 66-77, January.
    7. Geweke, John, 1998. "Real and Spurious Long-Memory Properties of Stock-Market Data: Comment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 269-271, July.
    8. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    9. Dufour, Jean-Marie & Ghysels, Eric & Hall, Alastair, 1994. "Generalized Predictive Tests and Structural Change Analysis in Econometrics," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(1), pages 199-229, February.
    10. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    11. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2002. "Evolving Post-World War II US Inflation Dynamics," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2001, Volume 16, pages 331-388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R & Piger, Jeremy, 2004. "The Less-Volatile U.S. Economy: A Bayesian Investigation of Timing, Breadth, and Potential Explanations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 80-93, January.
    13. Bradley P. Carlin & Alan E. Gelfand & Adrian F. M. Smith, 1992. "Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis of Changepoint Problems," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 41(2), pages 389-405, June.
    14. Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2001. "Are apparent findings of nonlinearity due to structural instability in economic time series?," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 4(1), pages 1-38.
    15. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1996. "Evidence on Structural Instability in Macroeconomic Time Series Relations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(1), pages 11-30, January.
    16. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    17. M. Hashem Pesaran & Davide Pettenuzzo & Allan Timmermann, 2006. "Forecasting Time Series Subject to Multiple Structural Breaks," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1057-1084.
    18. Chib, Siddhartha, 1998. "Estimation and comparison of multiple change-point models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 221-241, June.
    19. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2007. "Selection of estimation window in the presence of breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 134-161, March.
    20. Ghysels, Eric & Hall, Alastair, 1990. "A Test for Structural Stability of Euler Conditions Parameters Estimated via the Generalized Method of Moments Estimator," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(2), pages 355-364, May.
    21. D. W. K. Andrews, 2003. "End-of-Sample Instability Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1661-1694, November.
    22. Andrews, Donald W. K. & Lee, Inpyo & Ploberger, Werner, 1996. "Optimal changepoint tests for normal linear regression," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 9-38, January.
    23. Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2007. "Estimation and Forecasting in Models with Multiple Breaks," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 763-789.
    24. Wang, Jiahui & Zivot, Eric, 2000. "A Bayesian Time Series Model of Multiple Structural Changes in Level, Trend, and Variance," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 374-386, July.
    25. Hansen, Bruce E, 2002. "Tests for Parameter Instability in Regressions with I(1) Processes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 45-59, January.
    26. Andrews, Donald W K, 1993. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 821-856, July.
    27. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 2002. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Diffusion Indexes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 147-162, April.
    28. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Geweke, John & Jiang, Yu, 2011. "Inference and prediction in a multiple-structural-break model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 163(2), pages 172-185, August.
    2. Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2009. "Prior Elicitation In Multiple Change-Point Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(3), pages 751-772, August.
    3. Michael L. Polemis & Thanasis Stengos, 2019. "Does competition prevent industrial pollution? Evidence from a panel threshold model," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 98-110, January.
    4. Sjoerd van den Hauwe & Richard Paap & Dick J.C. van Dijk, 2011. "An Alternative Bayesian Approach to Structural Breaks in Time Series Models," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-023/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2015. "Forecasting in Nonstationary Environments: What Works and What Doesn't in Reduced-Form and Structural Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 207-229, August.
    6. Gary Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2007. "A flexible approach to parametric inference in nonlinear time series models," Staff Reports 285, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Dufays, Arnaud & Rombouts, Jeroen V.K., 2020. "Relevant parameter changes in structural break models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(1), pages 46-78.
    8. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2004. "How costly is it to ignore breaks when forecasting the direction of a time series?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 411-425.
    9. Jiawen Xu & Pierre Perron, 2023. "Forecasting in the presence of in-sample and out-of-sample breaks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(6), pages 3001-3035, June.
    10. Jochmann, Markus & Koop, Gary & Strachan, Rodney W., 2010. "Bayesian forecasting using stochastic search variable selection in a VAR subject to breaks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 326-347, April.
    11. Jiawen Xu & Pierre Perron, 2015. "Forecasting in the presence of in and out of sample breaks," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2015-012, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    12. Jiawen Xu & Pierre Perron, 2015. "Forecasting in the presence of in and out of sample breaks," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2015-012, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    13. Smith, Simon C. & Timmermann, Allan & Zhu, Yinchu, 2019. "Variable selection in panel models with breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 323-344.
    14. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    15. repec:hal:journl:peer-00732535 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Gary M. Koop & Simon M. Potter, 2004. "Forecasting and Estimating Multiple Change-point Models with an Unknown Number of Change-points," Discussion Papers in Economics 04/31, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    17. M. Hashem Pesaran & Davide Pettenuzzo & Allan Timmermann, 2006. "Forecasting Time Series Subject to Multiple Structural Breaks," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1057-1084.
    18. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2013. "Forecasting in macroeconomics," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 17, pages 381-408, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. El-Shazly, Alaa, 2016. "Structural breaks and monetary dynamics: A time series analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 133-143.
    20. Koop, Gary & Potter, Simon, 2010. "A flexible approach to parametric inference in nonlinear and time varying time series models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 159(1), pages 134-150, November.
    21. Adam Check & Jeremy Piger, 2021. "Structural Breaks in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series: A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 1999-2036, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bayesian Model Averaging; Markov Chain Monte Carlo; Real GDP Growth; Phillip's Curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-284. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.