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Looking into the black box of boosting: the case of Germany

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  • R. Lehmann
  • K. Wohlrabe

Abstract

This article looks into the ‘fine print’ of boosting for economic forecasting. By using German industrial production for the period from 1996 to 2014 and a data set consisting of 175 monthly indicators, we evaluate which indicators get selected by the boosting algorithm over time and four different forecasting horizons. It turns out that a number of hard indicators like turnovers, as well as a small number of survey results, get selected frequently by the algorithm and are therefore important to forecasting the performance of the German economy. However, there are indicators such as money supply that never get chosen by the boosting approach at all.

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  • R. Lehmann & K. Wohlrabe, 2016. "Looking into the black box of boosting: the case of Germany," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(17), pages 1229-1233, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:23:y:2016:i:17:p:1229-1233
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2016.1148246
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    1. Klaus Wohlrabe & Teresa Buchen, 2014. "Assessing the Macroeconomic Forecasting Performance of Boosting: Evidence for the United States, the Euro Area and Germany," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 231-242, July.
    2. Bańbura, Marta & Rünstler, Gerhard, 2011. "A look into the factor model black box: Publication lags and the role of hard and soft data in forecasting GDP," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 333-346.
    3. Christian Pierdzioch & Marian Risse & Sebastian Rohloff, 2015. "Forecasting gold-price fluctuations: a real-time boosting approach," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 46-50, January.
    4. Buchen, Teresa & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2011. "Forecasting with many predictors: Is boosting a viable alternative?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 16-18, October.
    5. Kim, Hyun Hak & Swanson, Norman R., 2014. "Forecasting financial and macroeconomic variables using data reduction methods: New empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P2), pages 352-367.
    6. Buhlmann P. & Yu B., 2003. "Boosting With the L2 Loss: Regression and Classification," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 98, pages 324-339, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Carstensen, Kai & Heinrich, Markus & Reif, Magnus & Wolters, Maik H., 2020. "Predicting ordinary and severe recessions with a three-state Markov-switching dynamic factor model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 829-850.
    2. Robert Lehmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2017. "Boosting and regional economic forecasting: the case of Germany," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 161-175, July.
    3. Guilherme Lindenmeyer & Pedro Pablo Skorin & Hudson da Silva Torrent, 2021. "Using boosting for forecasting electric energy consumption during a recession: a case study for the Brazilian State Rio Grande do Sul," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 111-128, August.
    4. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    5. Wolfgang Nierhaus & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2016. "ifo Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturanalyse: Band II," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 72, October.
    6. Götz, Thomas B. & Knetsch, Thomas A., 2019. "Google data in bridge equation models for German GDP," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 45-66.
    7. Robert Lehmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Boosting and Forecasting German Industrial Output: What Does a Closer Look at the Details Tell Us?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 69(03), pages 30-33, February.
    8. Rodríguez-Vargas, Adolfo, 2020. "Forecasting Costa Rican inflation with machine learning methods," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 1(1).
    9. Heinrich, Markus & Carstensen, Kai & Reif, Magnus & Wolters, Maik, 2017. "Predicting Ordinary and Severe Recessions with a Three-State Markov-Switching Dynamic Factor Model. An Application to the German Business Cycle," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168206, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Robert Lehmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2017. "Boosting and regional economic forecasting: the case of Germany," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 161-175, July.
    11. Claveria, Oscar & Monte, Enric & Torra, Salvador, 2020. "Economic forecasting with evolved confidence indicators," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 576-585.
    12. Pierdzioch Christian & Gupta Rangan, 2020. "Uncertainty and Forecasts of U.S. Recessions," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Pinkwart, Nicolas, 2018. "Short-term forecasting economic activity in Germany: A supply and demand side system of bridge equations," Discussion Papers 36/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    14. Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2017. "Predicting recessions with boosted regression trees," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 745-759.
    15. Matthias Huber & Simone Schüller & Marc Stöckli & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Machine Learning in Economic Research," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(07), pages 50-53, April.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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