IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-09-00760.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting the direction of change in aggregate demand growth and its components

Author

Listed:
  • Hamid Baghestani

    (Department of Economics, American University of Sharjah)

Abstract

In this study, we set up a framework to generate the forecasts of growth in aggregate demand and its components using real-time data. In general, these forecasts (for 1983-2008) accurately predict directional change under symmetric loss and are thus of value to a user who assigns similar cost (loss) to incorrect upward and downward predictions. Our model is simple yet useful, especially to economically-rational agents who tend to balance the predictive benefit of a forecast against the cost of gathering and processing information. We conclude by suggesting that the success of our model may have to do with the stationary behavior of the series as well as monetary policy that aims to achieve sustainable growth with stable prices.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamid Baghestani, 2010. "Predicting the direction of change in aggregate demand growth and its components," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(1), pages 292-302.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00760
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2010/Volume30/EB-10-V30-I1-P25.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baghestani, Hamid & Kherfi, Samer, 2008. "How well do U.S. consumers predict the direction of change in interest rates?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 725-732, November.
    2. Joutz, Fred & Stekler, H. O., 2000. "An evaluation of the predictions of the Federal Reserve," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 17-38.
    3. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2004. "How costly is it to ignore breaks when forecasting the direction of a time series?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 411-425.
    4. Dickey, David A & Fuller, Wayne A, 1981. "Likelihood Ratio Statistics for Autoregressive Time Series with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1057-1072, June.
    5. Greer, Mark, 2003. "Directional accuracy tests of long-term interest rate forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 291-298.
    6. Ash, J. C. K. & Smyth, D. J. & Heravi, S. M., 1998. "Are OECD forecasts rational and useful?: a directional analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 381-391, September.
    7. Leitch, Gordon & Tanner, J Ernest, 1991. "Economic Forecast Evaluation: Profits versus the Conventional Error Measures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 580-590, June.
    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. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:30:y:2010:i:1:p:292-302 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Directional analysis of fiscal sustainability: Revisiting Domar's debt sustainability condition," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 189-201.
    3. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2014. "Purchasing and supply managers provide early clues on the direction of the US economy: An application of a new market-timing test," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 599-618.
    4. Baghestani, Hamid, 2011. "Federal Reserve and private forecasts of growth in investment," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 290-305, July.
    5. Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2012. "Is the Purchasing Managers' Index useful for assessing the economy's strength? A directional analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1302-1311.
    6. Y. Tsuchiya, 2014. "A directional evaluation of corporate executives' exchange rate forecasts," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 95-101, January.
    7. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-073 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Young Bin Ahn & Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2016. "Directional analysis of consumers’ forecasts of inflation in a small open economy: evidence from South Korea," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(10), pages 854-864, February.
    9. Anatolyev Stanislav, 2009. "Multi-Market Direction-of-Change Modeling Using Dependence Ratios," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-24, March.
    10. Francisco J. Eransus & Alfonso Novales Cinca, 2011. "A statistical test for forecast evaluation under a discrete loss function," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2011-07, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    11. Blaskowitz, Oliver J. & Herwartz, Helmut, 2008. "Testing directional forecast value in the presence of serial correlation," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2008-073, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    12. Greer, Mark, 2003. "Directional accuracy tests of long-term interest rate forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 291-298.
    13. Masahiro Ashiya, 2006. "Are 16-month-ahead forecasts useful? A directional analysis of Japanese GDP forecasts," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 201-207.
    14. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2013. "Do corporate executives have accurate predictions for the economy? A directional analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 167-174.
    15. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Do production managers predict turning points? A directional analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-8.
    16. Bespalova, Olga, 2018. "Forecast Evaluation in Macroeconomics and International Finance. Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA," MPRA Paper 117706, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Paulo Júlio & Pedro M. Esperança, 2012. "Evaluating the forecast quality of GDP components: An application to G7," GEE Papers 0047, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Apr 2012.
    18. Ana-Maria Fuertes & Elena Kalotychou, 2004. "Forecasting sovereign default using panel models: A comparative analysis," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 228, Society for Computational Economics.
    19. Baghestani, Hamid, 2008. "Federal Reserve versus private information: Who is the best unemployment rate predictor," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 101-110.
    20. Cem Cakmakli & Dick van Dijk, 2010. "Getting the Most out of Macroeconomic Information for Predicting Stock Returns and Volatility," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 10-115/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    21. Masahiro Ashiya, 2003. "The directional accuracy of 15-months-ahead forecasts made by the IMF," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(6), pages 331-333.
    22. Hamid Baghestani, 2006. "An evaluation of the professional forecasts of U.S. long‐term interest rates," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 177-191.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Macroeconomy; Monetary policy; Naïve forecast; Directional accuracy; Asymmetric or symmetric loss;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-09-00760. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.