IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wzbmbh/spii2019212.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What point of a distribution summarises point predictions?

Author

Listed:
  • Kröger, Sabine
  • Pierrot, Thibaud

Abstract

In this article, we study the point predictions that forecasters report when they are asked to predict the realisation of an iid random variable. We set up a laboratory experiment where the participants act as forecasters predicting the next realisation of random draws coming from different "objectively known" distributions which vary in the location of their central tendencies. As is standard in survey measures, the subjects in our experiment must report their best guess of the next draw as a forecast. We find that most of the forecasters report point predictions that are close to one of the three main central tendencies (mean, median or mode) of the distributions provided, with a majority corresponding to the mode. Our analysis also shows that when selecting a point prediction, people have in mind a numerical value (e.g. the mean or the mode) rather than a specific percentile of the underlying distribution. Only 5% of the forecasts reported during the experiment are based on a percentile while almost 60% are based on a numerical value.

Suggested Citation

  • Kröger, Sabine & Pierrot, Thibaud, 2019. "What point of a distribution summarises point predictions?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2019-212, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbmbh:spii2019212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/206533/1/1680857673.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer & Allan Timmermann, 2008. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 122-157, March.
    2. Das, J.W.M. & Dominitz, J. & van Soest, A.H.O., 1997. "Comparing Predictions and Outcomes : Theory and Application to Income Changes," Other publications TiSEM 6eef11dd-0ae4-4673-b8c0-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    4. Manski, Charles F., 2002. "Identification of decision rules in experiments on simple games of proposal and response," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 880-891, May.
    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. Timo Dimitriadis & Andrew J. Patton & Patrick W. Schmidt, 2019. "Testing Forecast Rationality for Measures of Central Tendency," Papers 1910.12545, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    2. Paolo Crosetto & Thomas De Haan, 2022. "Comparing input interfaces to elicit belief distributions," Working Papers 2022-01, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    3. Alexander Dzionara & Niklas M. Witzig, 2024. "Behavioral Time Choices in Speed-Accuracy Trade-offs," Working Papers 2416, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

    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. Hugo Benítez-Silva & Debra Dwyer & Wayne-Roy Gayle & Thomas Muench, 2008. "Expectations in micro data: rationality revisited," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 381-416, March.
    2. Armantier, Olivier & Treich, Nicolas, 2013. "Eliciting beliefs: Proper scoring rules, incentives, stakes and hedging," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 17-40.
    3. Kyle Hyndman & Antoine Terracol & Jonathan Vaksmann, 2022. "Beliefs and (in)stability in normal-form games," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1146-1172, September.
    4. Manski, Charles F. & Neri, Claudia, 2013. "First- and second-order subjective expectations in strategic decision-making: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 232-254.
    5. Claudia Neri, 2015. "Eliciting beliefs in continuous-choice games: a double auction experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 569-608, December.
    6. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram & Freer, Mikhail, 2022. "Revealed preference analysis of expected utility maximization under prize-probability trade-offs," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    7. Luc Bissonnette & Arthur van Soest, 2012. "The future of retirement and the pension system: How the public’s expectations vary over time and across socio-economic groups," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-21, December.
    8. Sarah Brown & Mark N. Harris & Christopher Spencer & Karl Taylor, 2024. "Financial Expectations and Household Consumption: Does Middle‐Inflation Matter?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(4), pages 741-768, June.
    9. Mauro Mastrogiacomo, 2010. "Testing Consumers' Asymmetric Perception Of Changes In Household Financial Situation," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(2), pages 327-350, June.
    10. Maurizio Bovi, 2006. "Consumers Sentiment and Cognitive Macroeconometrics Paradoxes and Explanations," ISAE Working Papers 66, ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics - (Rome, ITALY).
    11. Konstadinos G. Goulias & Ram M. Pendyala, 2014. "Choice context," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 5, pages 101-130, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Todd Stinebrickner & Ralph Stinebrickner, 2012. "Learning about Academic Ability and the College Dropout Decision," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 707-748.
    13. Gbaguidi, David, 2012. "La courbe de Phillips : temps d’arbitrage et/ou arbitrage de temps," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 88(1), pages 87-119, mars.
    14. Hoderlein, Stefan & Winter, Joachim, 2010. "Structural measurement errors in nonseparable models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 432-440, August.
    15. Adeline Delavande, 2008. "Pill, Patch, Or Shot? Subjective Expectations And Birth Control Choice," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 999-1042, August.
    16. Karl Schlag & James Tremewan & Joël Weele, 2015. "A penny for your thoughts: a survey of methods for eliciting beliefs," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 457-490, September.
    17. Bissonnette, L. & van Soest, A.H.O., 2010. "Retirement Expectations, Preferences, and Decisions," Other publications TiSEM 45e93b08-cc1d-47c6-ba06-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Timo Dimitriadis & Andrew J. Patton & Patrick W. Schmidt, 2019. "Testing Forecast Rationality for Measures of Central Tendency," Papers 1910.12545, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    19. Olivier Armantier & Nicolas Treich, 2006. "Overbidding in Independant Private-Values Auctions and Misperception of Probabilities," CIRANO Working Papers 2006s-15, CIRANO.
    20. Adeline Delavande, 2008. "Measuring revisions to subjective expectations," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 43-82, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    subjective expectations; forecasting; eliciting point predictions; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:wzbmbh:spii2019212. 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/vawzbde.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.