IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v68y2015i8p1768-1771.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Golden rule of forecasting rearticulated: Forecast unto others as you would have them forecast unto you

Author

Listed:
  • Green, Kesten C.
  • Armstrong, J. Scott
  • Graefe, Andreas

Abstract

The Golden Rule of Forecasting is a general rule that applies to all forecasting problems. The Rule was developed using logic and was tested against evidence from previously published comparison studies. The evidence suggests that a single violation of the Golden Rule is likely to increase forecast error by 44%. Some commentators argue that the Rule is not generally applicable, but do not challenge the logic or evidence provided. While further research might provide useful findings, available evidence justifies adopting the Rule now. People with no prior training in forecasting can obtain the substantial benefits of following the Golden Rule by using the Checklist to identify biased and unscientific forecasts at little cost.

Suggested Citation

  • Green, Kesten C. & Armstrong, J. Scott & Graefe, Andreas, 2015. "Golden rule of forecasting rearticulated: Forecast unto others as you would have them forecast unto you," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1768-1771.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:68:y:2015:i:8:p:1768-1771
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315001538
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.03.036?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Armstrong, J. Scott & Green, Kesten C. & Graefe, Andreas, 2015. "Golden rule of forecasting: Be conservative," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1717-1731.
    2. Fildes, Robert & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2015. "Is there a Golden Rule?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1742-1745.
    3. Goodwin, Paul, 2015. "Is a more liberal approach to conservatism needed in forecasting?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1753-1754.
    4. Soyer, Emre & Hogarth, Robin M., 2012. "The illusion of predictability: How regression statistics mislead experts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 695-711.
    5. Armstrong, J. Scott & Collopy, Fred, 1992. "Error measures for generalizing about forecasting methods: Empirical comparisons," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 69-80, June.
    6. Soyer, Emre & Hogarth, Robin M., 2015. "The golden rule of forecasting: Objections, refinements, and enhancements," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1702-1704.
    7. Stock J.H. & Watson M.W., 2002. "Forecasting Using Principal Components From a Large Number of Predictors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1167-1179, December.
    8. Cass Sunstein & Richard Zeckhauser, 2011. "Overreaction to Fearsome Risks," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 435-449, March.
    9. Gardner, Everette S., 2015. "Conservative forecasting with the damped trend," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1739-1741.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Thomson, Mary E. & Pollock, Andrew C. & Önkal, Dilek & Gönül, M. Sinan, 2019. "Combining forecasts: Performance and coherence," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 474-484.
    2. Cameron, Andrew & Nelson, Rohan, 2022. "Enabling Users to Evaluate the Accuracy of ABARES Agricultural Forecasts," Australasian Agribusiness Review, University of Melbourne, Department of Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 30(7), November.

    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. López Menéndez, Ana Jesús & Pérez Suárez, Rigoberto, 2017. "Forecasting Performance and Information Measures. Revisiting the M-Competition /Evaluación de Predicciones y Medidas de Información. Reexamen de la M-Competición," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 35, pages 299-314, Mayo.
    2. Thomson, Mary E. & Pollock, Andrew C. & Önkal, Dilek & Gönül, M. Sinan, 2019. "Combining forecasts: Performance and coherence," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 474-484.
    3. Armstrong, J. Scott & Green, Kesten C. & Graefe, Andreas, 2015. "Golden rule of forecasting: Be conservative," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1717-1731.
    4. Pennings, Clint L.P. & van Dalen, Jan & Rook, Laurens, 2019. "Coordinating judgmental forecasting: Coping with intentional biases," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 46-56.
    5. Green, Kesten C. & Armstrong, J. Scott, 2015. "Simple versus complex forecasting: The evidence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1678-1685.
    6. Salim Lahmiri, 2020. "A predictive system integrating intrinsic mode functions, artificial neural networks, and genetic algorithms for forecasting S&P500 intra‐day data," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2), pages 55-65, April.
    7. Andreas Graefe & Kesten C Green & J Scott Armstrong, 2019. "Accuracy gains from conservative forecasting: Tests using variations of 19 econometric models to predict 154 elections in 10 countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, January.
    8. Armstrong, J. Scott, 2011. "Illusions in Regression Analysis," MPRA Paper 81663, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Huang, Tao & Fildes, Robert & Soopramanien, Didier, 2014. "The value of competitive information in forecasting FMCG retail product sales and the variable selection problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 237(2), pages 738-748.
    10. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    11. Soyer, Emre & Hogarth, Robin M., 2015. "The golden rule of forecasting: Objections, refinements, and enhancements," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1702-1704.
    12. De Gooijer, Jan G. & Hyndman, Rob J., 2006. "25 years of time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 443-473.
    13. Fildes, Robert & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2015. "Is there a Golden Rule?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1742-1745.
    14. Katsikopoulos, Konstantinos V. & Durbach, Ian N. & Stewart, Theodor J., 2018. "When should we use simple decision models? A synthesis of various research strands," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 17-25.
    15. von der Gracht, Heiko A. & Hommel, Ulrich & Prokesch, Tobias & Wohlenberg, Holger, 2016. "Testing weighting approaches for forecasting in a Group Wisdom Support System environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4081-4094.
    16. Raffaele Mattera & Michelangelo Misuraca & Maria Spano & Germana Scepi, 2023. "Mixed frequency composite indicators for measuring public sentiment in the EU," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 2357-2382, June.
    17. Juan José Echavarría & Andrés González, 2012. "Choques internacionales reales y financieros y su impacto sobre la economía colombiana," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 30(69), pages 14-66, December.
    18. Oxana Babecka Kucharcukova & Jan Bruha, 2016. "Nowcasting the Czech Trade Balance," Working Papers 2016/11, Czech National Bank.
    19. Yukai Yang & Luc Bauwens, 2018. "State-Space Models on the Stiefel Manifold with a New Approach to Nonlinear Filtering," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-22, December.
    20. Eric Hillebrand & Huiyu Huang & Tae-Hwy Lee & Canlin Li, 2018. "Using the Entire Yield Curve in Forecasting Output and Inflation," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-27, August.

    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:eee:jbrese:v:68:y:2015:i:8:p:1768-1771. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    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.