IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cfswop/500.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inside the crystal ball: New approaches to predicting the gasoline price at the pump

Author

Listed:
  • Baumeister, Christiane
  • Kilian, Lutz
  • Lee, Thomas K.

Abstract

Although there is much interest in the future retail price of gasoline among consumers, industry analysts, and policymakers, it is widely believed that changes in the price of gasoline are essentially unforecastable given publicly available information. We explore a range of new forecasting approaches for the retail price of gasoline and compare their accuracy with the no-change forecast. Our key finding is that substantial reductions in the mean-squared prediction error (MSPE) of gasoline price forecasts are feasible in real time at horizons up to two years, as are substantial increases in directional accuracy. The most accurate individual model is a VAR(1) model for real retail gasoline and Brent crude oil prices. Even greater reductions in MSPEs are possible by constructing a pooled forecast that assigns equal weight to five of the most successful forecasting models. Pooled forecasts have lower MSPE than the EIA gasoline price forecasts and the gasoline price expectations in the Michigan Survey of Consumers. We also show that as much as 39% of the decline in gas prices between June and December 2014 was predictable.

Suggested Citation

  • Baumeister, Christiane & Kilian, Lutz & Lee, Thomas K., 2015. "Inside the crystal ball: New approaches to predicting the gasoline price at the pump," CFS Working Paper Series 500, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cfswop:500
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/106442/1/815599900.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baumeister, Christiane & Guérin, Pierre & Kilian, Lutz, 2015. "Do high-frequency financial data help forecast oil prices? The MIDAS touch at work," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 238-252.
    2. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2013. "Are Product Spreads Useful for Forecasting? An Empirical Evaluation of the Verleger Hypothesis," Staff Working Papers 13-25, Bank of Canada.
    3. Chan, Joshua C.C., 2013. "Moving average stochastic volatility models with application to inflation forecast," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 176(2), pages 162-172.
    4. Soren T. Anderson & Ryan Kellogg & James M. Sallee & Richard T. Curtin, 2011. "Forecasting Gasoline Prices Using Consumer Surveys," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 110-114, May.
    5. David F. Hendry & Kirstin Hubrich, 2011. "Combining Disaggregate Forecasts or Combining Disaggregate Information to Forecast an Aggregate," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 216-227, April.
    6. Sanders, Dwight R. & Manfredo, Mark R. & Boris, Keith, 2009. "Evaluating information in multiple horizon forecasts: The DOE's energy price forecasts," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 189-196.
    7. Bastianin, Andrea & Galeotti, Marzio & Manera, Matteo, 2014. "Forecasting the oil–gasoline price relationship: Do asymmetries help?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(S1), pages 44-56.
    8. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    9. Lutz Kilian, 2016. "The Impact of the Shale Oil Revolution on U.S. Oil and Gasoline Prices," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 10(2), pages 185-205.
    10. Shiu-Sheng Chen, 2014. "Forecasting Crude Oil Price Movements With Oil-Sensitive Stocks," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 830-844, April.
    11. James D. Hamilton, 2009. "Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(1 (Spring), pages 215-283.
    12. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2009. "Testing Dependence Among Serially Correlated Multicategory Variables," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 104(485), pages 325-337.
    13. Severin Borenstein and Ryan Kellogg, 2014. "The Incidence of an Oil Glut: Who Benefits from Cheap Crude Oil in the Midwest?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    14. Christoffersen, Peter F & Diebold, Francis X, 1998. "Cointegration and Long-Horizon Forecasting," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 450-458, October.
    15. Alquist, Ron & Kilian, Lutz & Vigfusson, Robert J., 2013. "Forecasting the Price of Oil," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 427-507, Elsevier.
    16. Anderson, Soren T. & Kellogg, Ryan & Sallee, James M., 2013. "What do consumers believe about future gasoline prices?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 383-403.
    17. Meghan R. Busse & Christopher R. Knittel & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2013. "Are Consumers Myopic? Evidence from New and Used Car Purchases," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 220-256, February.
    18. Justine S. Hastings & Richard J. Gilbert, 2005. "Market Power, Vertical Integration And The Wholesale Price Of Gasoline," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 469-492, December.
    19. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian, 2015. "Forecasting the Real Price of Oil in a Changing World: A Forecast Combination Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 338-351, July.
    20. Baumeister, Christiane & Kilian, Lutz & Lee, Thomas K., 2014. "Are there gains from pooling real-time oil price forecasts?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(S1), pages 33-43.
    21. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    22. Lutz Kilian, 2010. "Explaining Fluctuations in Gasoline Prices: A Joint Model of the Global Crude Oil Market and the U.S. Retail Gasoline Market," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2), pages 87-112.
    23. 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.
    24. Meghan R. Busse & Christopher R. Knittel & Jorge Silva-Risso & Florian Zettelmeyer, 2016. "Who is exposed to gas prices? How gasoline prices affect automobile manufacturers and dealerships," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 41-95, March.
    25. Lance J. Bachmeier & James M. Griffin, 2003. "New Evidence on Asymmetric Gasoline Price Responses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 772-776, August.
    26. Clark, Todd & McCracken, Michael, 2013. "Advances in Forecast Evaluation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1107-1201, Elsevier.
    27. Shanjun Li & Christopher Timmins & Roger H. von Haefen, 2009. "How Do Gasoline Prices Affect Fleet Fuel Economy?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 113-137, August.
    28. James A. Kahn, 1986. "Gasoline Prices and the Used Automobile Market: A Rational Expectations Asset Price Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 101(2), pages 323-339.
    29. Baumeister, Christiane & Kilian, Lutz & Zhou, Xiaoqing, 2018. "Are Product Spreads Useful For Forecasting Oil Prices? An Empirical Evaluation Of The Verleger Hypothesis," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 562-580, April.
    30. Hunt Allcott & Nathan Wozny, 2014. "Gasoline Prices, Fuel Economy, and the Energy Paradox," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 779-795, December.
    31. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Prior Selection for Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 436-451, May.
    32. Clark, Todd E. & West, Kenneth D., 2007. "Approximately normal tests for equal predictive accuracy in nested models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 291-311, May.
    33. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Erratum to "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?"," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1849-1849, October.
    34. 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.
    35. Lutz Kilian & Daniel P. Murphy, 2014. "The Role Of Inventories And Speculative Trading In The Global Market For Crude Oil," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 454-478, April.
    36. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    37. repec:fip:fedgsq:y:2011:i:apr11 is not listed on IDEAS
    38. Lutz Kilian, 2009. "Not All Oil Price Shocks Are Alike: Disentangling Demand and Supply Shocks in the Crude Oil Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1053-1069, June.
    39. Edelstein, Paul & Kilian, Lutz, 2009. "How sensitive are consumer expenditures to retail energy prices?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 766-779, September.
    40. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    41. Mark, Nelson C, 1995. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: Evidence on Long-Horizon Predictability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 201-218, March.
    42. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, December.
    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. John Coglianese & Lucas W. Davis & Lutz Kilian & James H. Stock, 2017. "Anticipation, Tax Avoidance, and the Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 1-15, January.
    2. Sameh Asim Ajlouni & Moh'd Taleb Alodat, 2021. "Gaussian Process Regression for Forecasting Gasoline Prices in Jordan," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(3), pages 502-509.
    3. Christiane Baumeister & Dimitris Korobilis & Thomas K. Lee, 2022. "Energy Markets and Global Economic Conditions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 828-844, October.
    4. Christiane Baumeister & Reinhard Ellwanger & Lutz Kilian, 2016. "Did the Renewable Fuel Standard Shift Market Expectations of the Price of Ethanol?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6282, CESifo.
    5. Arunanondchai, Panit & Senia, Mark C. & Capps, Oral, Jr., 2017. "Can U.S. EIA Retail Gasoline Price Forecasts Be Improved Upon?," Reports 285201, Texas A&M University, Agribusiness, Food, and Consumer Economics Research Center.
    6. Gupta, Rangan & Yoon, Seong-Min, 2018. "OPEC news and predictability of oil futures returns and volatility: Evidence from a nonparametric causality-in-quantiles approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 206-214.
    7. Pincheira-Brown, Pablo & Bentancor, Andrea & Hardy, Nicolás & Jarsun, Nabil, 2022. "Forecasting fuel prices with the Chilean exchange rate: Going beyond the commodity currency hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    8. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian, 2016. "Lower Oil Prices and the U.S. Economy: Is This Time Different?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 287-357.
    9. Zouhaier Dhifaoui & Sami Ben Jabeur & Rabeh Khalfaoui & Muhammad Ali Nasir, 2023. "Time‐varying partial‐directed coherence approach to forecast global energy prices with stochastic volatility model," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2292-2306, December.
    10. Ellwanger, Reinhard & Snudden, Stephen, 2023. "Forecasts of the real price of oil revisited: Do they beat the random walk?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Binder, Carola Conces, 2018. "Inflation expectations and the price at the pump," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-18.
    12. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Killian, 2016. "Lower Oil Prices and the U.S. Economy: Is This Time Different?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 287-357.
    13. Pincheira, Pablo & Jarsun, Nabil, 2020. "Summary of the Paper Entitled: Forecasting Fuel Prices with the Chilean Exchange Rate," MPRA Paper 105056, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Bumpass, Donald & Douglas, Christopher & Ginn, Vance & Tuttle, M.H., 2019. "Testing for short and long-run asymmetric responses and structural breaks in the retail gasoline supply chain," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 311-318.
    15. Reinhard Ellwanger, Stephen Snudden, Lenin Arango-Castillo, 2023. "Seize the Last Day: Period-End-Point Sampling for Forecasts of Temporally Aggregated Data," LCERPA Working Papers bm0142, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.
    16. Feng Xu & Mohamad Sepehri & Jian Hua & Sergey Ivanov & Julius N. Anyu, 2018. "Time-Series Forecasting Models for Gasoline Prices in China," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(12), pages 1-43, December.
    17. Reinhard Ellwanger, Stephen Snudden, 2021. "Predictability of Aggregated Time Series," LCERPA Working Papers bm0127, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.

    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. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    2. Baumeister, Christiane & Kilian, Lutz & Lee, Thomas K., 2014. "Are there gains from pooling real-time oil price forecasts?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(S1), pages 33-43.
    3. Kilian, Lutz & Baumeister, Christiane, 2014. "A General Approach to Recovering Market Expectations from Futures Prices With an Application to Crude Oil," CEPR Discussion Papers 10162, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Degiannakis, Stavros & Filis, George, 2018. "Forecasting oil prices: High-frequency financial data are indeed useful," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 388-402.
    5. Alquist, Ron & Kilian, Lutz & Vigfusson, Robert J., 2013. "Forecasting the Price of Oil," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 427-507, Elsevier.
    6. Funk, Christoph, 2018. "Forecasting the real price of oil - Time-variation and forecast combination," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 288-302.
    7. Wang, Yudong & Hao, Xianfeng, 2022. "Forecasting the real prices of crude oil: A robust weighted least squares approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    8. Baumeister, Christiane & Guérin, Pierre & Kilian, Lutz, 2015. "Do high-frequency financial data help forecast oil prices? The MIDAS touch at work," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 238-252.
    9. Christiane Baumeister & Dimitris Korobilis & Thomas K. Lee, 2022. "Energy Markets and Global Economic Conditions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(4), pages 828-844, October.
    10. Snudden, Stephen, 2018. "Targeted growth rates for long-horizon crude oil price forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-16.
    11. Dbouk, Wassim & Jamali, Ibrahim, 2018. "Predicting daily oil prices: Linear and non-linear models," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 149-165.
    12. Reinhard Ellwanger, Stephen Snudden, 2021. "Predictability of Aggregated Time Series," LCERPA Working Papers bm0127, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis.
    13. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian, 2014. "What Central Bankers Need To Know About Forecasting Oil Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(3), pages 869-889, August.
    14. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian & Xiaoqing Zhou, 2013. "Are Product Spreads Useful for Forecasting? An Empirical Evaluation of the Verleger Hypothesis," Staff Working Papers 13-25, Bank of Canada.
    15. Ellwanger, Reinhard & Snudden, Stephen, 2023. "Forecasts of the real price of oil revisited: Do they beat the random walk?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    16. Hao, Xianfeng & Zhao, Yuyang & Wang, Yudong, 2020. "Forecasting the real prices of crude oil using robust regression models with regularization constraints," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. 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.
    18. Wang, Yudong & Hao, Xianfeng, 2023. "Forecasting the real prices of crude oil: What is the role of parameter instability?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    19. Bernard, Jean-Thomas & Khalaf, Lynda & Kichian, Maral & Yelou, Clement, 2018. "Oil Price Forecasts For The Long Term: Expert Outlooks, Models, Or Both?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 581-599, April.
    20. Christiane Baumeister & Lutz Kilian, 2015. "Forecasting the Real Price of Oil in a Changing World: A Forecast Combination Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 338-351, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    retail gasoline price; oil market; real-time data; WTI; Brent; survey expectations; expert forecasts; forecast combination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

    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:zbw:cfswop:500. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifkcfde.html .

    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.