IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/6188.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Forecasts of US Short-term Interest Rates: A Flexible Forecast Combination Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Timmermann, Allan
  • Guidolin, Massimo

Abstract

This paper develops a flexible approach to combine forecasts of future spot rates with forecasts from time-series models or macroeconomic variables. We find empirical evidence that accounting for both regimes in interest rate dynamics and combining forecasts from different models helps improve the out-of-sample forecasting performance for US short-term rates. Imposing restrictions from the expectations hypothesis on the forecasting model are found to help at long forecasting horizons.

Suggested Citation

  • Timmermann, Allan & Guidolin, Massimo, 2007. "Forecasts of US Short-term Interest Rates: A Flexible Forecast Combination Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 6188, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6188
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP6188
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. West, Kenneth D, 1996. "Asymptotic Inference about Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1067-1084, September.
    2. Piazzesi, Monika & Swanson, Eric T., 2008. "Futures prices as risk-adjusted forecasts of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 677-691, May.
    3. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Tao Wu, 2008. "A Macro‐Finance Model of the Term Structure, Monetary Policy and the Economy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 906-926, July.
    4. Hamilton, James D, 1996. "The Daily Market for Federal Funds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 26-56, February.
    5. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    6. Francis X. Diebold & Monika Piazzesi & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2005. "Modeling Bond Yields in Finance and Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 415-420, May.
    7. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, 1996. "Nonparametric Pricing of Interest Rate Derivative Securities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 527-560, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Sarno, Lucio & Thornton, Daniel L & Valente, Giorgio, 2005. "Federal Funds Rate Prediction," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 449-471, June.
    10. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert, 2002. "Regime Switches in Interest Rates," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 163-182, April.
    11. 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.
    12. N. Gregory Mankiw, 1986. "The Term Structure of Interest Rates Revisited," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 17(1), pages 61-110.
    13. Deutsch, Melinda & Granger, Clive W. J. & Terasvirta, Timo, 1994. "The combination of forecasts using changing weights," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 47-57, June.
    14. Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Yields and the Federal Reserve," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 311-344, April.
    15. 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.
    16. Markku Lanne, 1999. "Near Unit Roots And The Predictive Power Of Yield Spreads For Changes In Long-Term Interest Rates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 393-398, August.
    17. Vasicek, Oldrich, 1977. "An equilibrium characterization of the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 177-188, November.
    18. Ravi Bansal & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2004. "Regime Shifts, Risk Premiums in the Term Structure, and the Business Cycle," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 396-409, October.
    19. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika, 2003. "A no-arbitrage vector autoregression of term structure dynamics with macroeconomic and latent variables," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 745-787, May.
    20. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1991. "Yield Spreads and Interest Rate Movements: A Bird's Eye View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 495-514.
    21. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    22. Diebold, Francis X. & Li, Canlin, 2006. "Forecasting the term structure of government bond yields," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 337-364, February.
    23. Gregory R. Duffee, 2002. "Term Premia and Interest Rate Forecasts in Affine Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 405-443, February.
    24. Clements,Michael & Hendry,David, 1998. "Forecasting Economic Time Series," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521634809, Enero.
    25. Tao Wu & Glenn Rudebusch, 2003. "Macroeconomics and the Yield Curve," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 206, Society for Computational Economics.
    26. Hamilton, James D., 1988. "Rational-expectations econometric analysis of changes in regime : An investigation of the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 385-423.
    27. Mishkin, Frederic S, 1988. "The Information in the Term Structure: Some Further Results," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(4), pages 307-314, October-D.
    28. Francis X. Diebold & Peter Pauly, 1987. "Structural change and the combination of forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 21-40.
    29. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    30. Diebold, Francis X & Kilian, Lutz, 2000. "Unit-Root Tests Are Useful for Selecting Forecasting Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 265-273, July.
    31. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    32. Heejoon Kang, 1986. "Unstable Weights in the Combination of Forecasts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(6), pages 683-695, June.
    33. Diebold, Francis X. & Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Borag[caron]an Aruoba, S., 2006. "The macroeconomy and the yield curve: a dynamic latent factor approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 309-338.
    34. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine, 1996. "Testing Continuous-Time Models of the Spot Interest Rate," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 9(2), pages 385-426.
    35. 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.
    36. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    37. Clark, Todd E. & McCracken, Michael W., 2001. "Tests of equal forecast accuracy and encompassing for nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 85-110, November.
    38. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert, 2002. "Short rate nonlinearities and regime switches," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1243-1274, July.
    39. Qiang Dai & Thomas Philippon, 2005. "Fiscal Policy and the Term Structure of Interest Rates," NBER Working Papers 11574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Gray, Stephen F., 1996. "Modeling the conditional distribution of interest rates as a regime-switching process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 27-62, September.
    41. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    42. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann, 2005. "Optimal Forecast Combination Under Regime Switching ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1081-1102, November.
    43. Sola, Martin & Driffill, John, 1994. "Testing the term structure of interest rates using a stationary vector autoregression with regime switching," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(3-4), pages 601-628.
    44. Shea, Gary S, 1992. "Benchmarking the Expectations Hypothesis of the Interest-Rate Term Structure: An Analysis of Cointegration Vectors," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 347-366, July.
    45. Hall, Anthony D & Anderson, Heather M & Granger, Clive W J, 1992. "A Cointegration Analysis of Treasury Bill Yields," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 116-126, February.
    46. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1998. "A Comparison of Linear and Nonlinear Univariate Models for Forecasting Macroeconomic Time Series," NBER Working Papers 6607, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    47. Clemen, Robert T., 1989. "Combining forecasts: A review and annotated bibliography," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 559-583.
    48. Aiolfi, Marco & Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Persistence in forecasting performance and conditional combination strategies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 31-53.
    49. Fama, Eugene F & Bliss, Robert R, 1987. "The Information in Long-Maturity Forward Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 680-692, September.
    50. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Sarno, Lucio & Thornton, Daniel L & Valente, Giorgio, 2005. "Federal Funds Rate Prediction," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 449-471, June.
    4. Daniel Borup & Jonas N. Eriksen & Mads M. Kjær & Martin Thyrsgaard, 2024. "Predicting Bond Return Predictability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(2), pages 931-951, February.
    5. Guidolin, Massimo & Thornton, Daniel L., 2018. "Predictions of short-term rates and the expectations hypothesis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-664.
    6. Caldeira, João F. & Moura, Guilherme V. & Santos, André A.P., 2016. "Predicting the yield curve using forecast combinations," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 79-98.
    7. Zeno Rotondi, 2006. "The Macroeconomy and the Yield Curve: A Review of the Literature with Some New Evidence," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 65(2), pages 193-224, November.
    8. De Pooter, Michiel & Ravazzolo, Francesco & van Dijk, Dick, 2006. "Predicting the term structure of interest rates incorporating parameter uncertainty, model uncertainty and macroeconomic information," MPRA Paper 2512, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Mar 2007.
    9. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    10. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Wei, Min, 2007. "Do macro variables, asset markets, or surveys forecast inflation better?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1163-1212, May.
    11. Yvon Fauvel & Alain Paquet & Christian Zimmermann, 1999. "A Survey on Interest Rate Forecasting," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 87, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    12. 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.
    13. Carlo A. Favero & Arie E. Gozluklu & Haoxi Yang, 2016. "Demographics and the Behavior of Interest Rates," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(4), pages 732-776, November.
    14. Henri Nyberg, 2018. "Forecasting US interest rates and business cycle with a nonlinear regime switching VAR model," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(1), pages 1-15, January.
    15. Alain Monfort & Fulvio Pegoraro, 2007. "Switching VARMA Term Structure Models - Extended Version," Working Papers 2007-19, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    16. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2008. "The Term Structure of Real Rates and Expected Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 797-849, April.
    17. Jardet, Caroline & Monfort, Alain & Pegoraro, Fulvio, 2013. "No-arbitrage Near-Cointegrated VAR(p) term structure models, term premia and GDP growth," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 389-402.
    18. Michiel De Pooter & Francesco Ravazzolo & Dick van Dijk, 2010. "Term structure forecasting using macro factors and forecast combination," International Finance Discussion Papers 993, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Andr? Kurmann & Christopher Otrok, 2013. "News Shocks and the Slope of the Term Structure of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2612-2632, October.
    20. Richard H. Clarida & Lucio Sarno & Mark P. Taylor & Giorgio Valente, 2006. "The Role of Asymmetries and Regime Shifts in the Term Structure of Interest Rates," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 1193-1224, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forecast combinations; Term structure of interest rates;

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:cpr:ceprdp:6188. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.