IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jof/jforec/v27y2008i1p75-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting US employment growth using forecast combining methods

Author

Listed:
  • David E. Rapach

    (Department of Economics, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO 63108-3397, USA)

  • Jack K. Strauss

    (Department of Economics, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO 63108-3397, USA)

Abstract

We examine different approaches to forecasting monthly US employment growth in the presence of many potentially relevant predictors. We first generate simulated out-of-sample forecasts of US employment growth at multiple horizons using individual autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models based on 30 potential predictors. We then consider different methods from the extant literature for combining the forecasts generated by the individual ARDL models. Using the mean square forecast error (MSFE) metric, we investigate the performance of the forecast combining methods over the last decade, as well as five periods centered on the last five US recessions. Overall, our results show that a number of combining methods outperform a benchmark autoregressive model. Combining methods based on principal components exhibit the best overall performance, while methods based on simple averaging, clusters, and discount MSFE also perform well. On a cautionary note, some combining methods, such as those based on ordinary least squares, often perform quite poorly. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • David E. Rapach & Jack K. Strauss, 2008. "Forecasting US employment growth using forecast combining methods," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 75-93.
    • Handle: RePEc:jof:jforec:v:27:y:2008:i:1:p:75-93
    DOI: 10.1002/for.1051
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/for.1051
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/for.1051?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    2. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    3. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "How did leading indicator forecasts perform during the 2001 recession?," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 89(Sum), pages 71-90.
    4. 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.
    5. Clemon, Robert T & Winkler, Robert L, 1986. "Combining Economic Forecasts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(1), pages 39-46, January.
    6. Swanson, Norman R & Zeng, Tian, 2001. "Choosing among Competing Econometric Forecasts: Regression-Based Forecast Combination Using Model Selection," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(6), pages 425-440, September.
    7. Serena Ng & Pierre Perron, 2001. "LAG Length Selection and the Construction of Unit Root Tests with Good Size and Power," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1519-1554, November.
    8. Yang, Yuhong, 2004. "Combining Forecasting Procedures: Some Theoretical Results," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 176-222, February.
    9. 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.
    10. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    11. 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.
    12. Garratt A. & Lee K. & Pesaran M.H. & Shin Y., 2003. "Forecast Uncertainties in Macroeconomic Modeling: An Application to the U.K. Economy," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 98, pages 829-838, January.
    13. Yeung Lewis Chan & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1999. "A dynamic factor model framework for forecast combination," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 91-121.
    14. Diebold, Francis X. & Pauly, Peter, 1990. "The use of prior information in forecast combination," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 503-508, December.
    15. Aiolfi, Marco & Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Persistence in forecasting performance and conditional combination strategies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 31-53.
    16. 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.
    17. Massimiliano Marcellino, 2004. "Forecast Pooling for European Macroeconomic Variables," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 66(1), pages 91-112, February.
    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. David E. Rapach & Jack K. Strauss, 2005. "Forecasting employment growth in Missouri with many potentially relevant predictors: an analysis of forecast combining methods," Regional Economic Development, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Nov, pages 97-112.
    2. Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Forecast Combinations," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 135-196, Elsevier.
    3. Wang, Xiaoqian & Hyndman, Rob J. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2023. "Forecast combinations: An over 50-year review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1518-1547.
    4. David Rapach & Jack Strauss, 2010. "Bagging or Combining (or Both)? An Analysis Based on Forecasting U.S. Employment Growth," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5-6), pages 511-533.
    5. Huiyu Huang & Tae-Hwy Lee, 2010. "To Combine Forecasts or to Combine Information?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5-6), pages 534-570.
    6. 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.
    7. Rossi, Barbara & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2014. "Evaluating predictive densities of US output growth and inflation in a large macroeconomic data set," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 662-682.
    8. Jordan, Steven J. & Vivian, Andrew & Wohar, Mark E., 2016. "Can commodity returns forecast Canadian sector stock returns?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 172-188.
    9. Andrejs Bessonovs, 2015. "Suite of Latvia's GDP forecasting models," Working Papers 2015/01, Latvijas Banka.
    10. Mayr, Johannes, 2010. "Forecasting Macroeconomic Aggregates," Munich Dissertations in Economics 11140, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    11. Cotter, John & Eyiah-Donkor, Emmanuel & Potì, Valerio, 2023. "Commodity futures return predictability and intertemporal asset pricing," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 31(C).
    12. Jordan, Steven J. & Vivian, Andrew & Wohar, Mark E., 2017. "Forecasting market returns: bagging or combining?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 102-120.
    13. Guido Bulligan & Roberto Golinelli & Giuseppe Parigi, 2010. "Forecasting monthly industrial production in real-time: from single equations to factor-based models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 303-336, October.
    14. Kim, Hyun Hak & Swanson, Norman R., 2018. "Mining big data using parsimonious factor, machine learning, variable selection and shrinkage methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 339-354.
    15. Aye, Goodness C. & Balcilar, Mehmet & Gupta, Rangan & Majumdar, Anandamayee, 2015. "Forecasting aggregate retail sales: The case of South Africa," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 66-79.
    16. Sandra Eickmeier & Christina Ziegler, 2008. "How successful are dynamic factor models at forecasting output and inflation? A meta-analytic approach," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 237-265.
    17. Matsypura, Dmytro & Thompson, Ryan & Vasnev, Andrey L., 2018. "Optimal selection of expert forecasts with integer programming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 165-175.
    18. Pedro Henrique Melo Albuquerque & Yaohao Peng & João Pedro Fontoura da Silva, 2022. "Making the whole greater than the sum of its parts: A literature review of ensemble methods for financial time series forecasting," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(8), pages 1701-1724, December.
    19. Jing Zeng, 2016. "Combining country-specific forecasts when forecasting Euro area macroeconomic aggregates," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 43(2), pages 415-444, May.
    20. Troy D. Matheson, 2006. "Factor Model Forecasts for New Zealand," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 2(2), May.

    More about this item

    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:jof:jforec:v:27:y:2008:i:1:p:75-93. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/2966 .

    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.