IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jof/jforec/v29y2010i5p476-485.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting the signs of forecast errors

Author

Listed:
  • Nazaria Solferino

    (University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Rome, Italy)

  • Robert Waldmann

    (University of Rome 'Tor Vergata', Rome, Italy)

Abstract

The signs of forecast errors can be predicted using the difference between individuals' forecasts and the average of earlier forecasts of the same variable. It is possible to improve forecasts without worsening any. It is difficult to reconcile this result with the rational expectations hypothesis because the average of earlier forecasts is in the information set of the forecasters. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Nazaria Solferino & Robert Waldmann, 2010. "Predicting the signs of forecast errors," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 476-485.
    • Handle: RePEc:jof:jforec:v:29:y:2010:i:5:p:476-485
    DOI: 10.1002/for.1139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/for.1139
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/for.1139?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann & Ivana Komunjer, 2005. "Estimation and Testing of Forecast Rationality under Flexible Loss," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 1107-1125.
    2. Christoffersen, Peter F. & Diebold, Francis X., 1997. "Optimal Prediction Under Asymmetric Loss," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(6), pages 808-817, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Patton, Andrew J. & Timmermann, Allan, 2007. "Properties of optimal forecasts under asymmetric loss and nonlinearity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 884-918, October.
    5. Clive W.J. Granger, 1999. "Outline of forecast theory using generalized cost functions," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 161-173.
    6. Tilman Ehrbeck & Robert Waldmann, 1996. "Why Are Professional Forecasters Biased? Agency versus Behavioral Explanations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 21-40.
    7. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann, 2016. "Economic Forecasting," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10740.
    8. Steven P. Peterson, 2001. "Rational Bias In Yield Curve Forecasts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 457-464, August.
    9. Batchelor, Roy & Peel, David A., 1998. "Rationality testing under asymmetric loss," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 49-54, October.
    10. Weiss, Andrew A, 1996. "Estimating Time Series Models Using the Relevant Cost Function," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 539-560, Sept.-Oct.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Photographing Phantom Invisible Bond Vigilantes
      by Robert in angry bear on 2009-11-22 19:02:00
    2. I am storing pdf's at google sites so you can see my research
      by Robert in Robert's Stochastic Thoughts on 2009-03-16 16:09:00
    3. Copying It's not Just for Students any More
      by Robert in Robert's Stochastic Thoughts on 2014-08-12 17:17:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bergmeir, Christoph & Costantini, Mauro & Benítez, José M., 2014. "On the usefulness of cross-validation for directional forecast evaluation," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 132-143.

    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. Anatolyev, Stanislav, 2009. "Dynamic modeling under linear-exponential loss," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 82-89, January.
    2. Capistrán, Carlos, 2008. "Bias in Federal Reserve inflation forecasts: Is the Federal Reserve irrational or just cautious?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(8), pages 1415-1427, November.
    3. Siddhartha S. Bora & Ani L. Katchova & Todd H. Kuethe, 2021. "The Rationality of USDA Forecasts under Multivariate Asymmetric Loss," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(3), pages 1006-1033, May.
    4. Demetrescu, Matei & Hacıoğlu Hoke, Sinem, 2019. "Predictive regressions under asymmetric loss: Factor augmentation and model selection," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 80-99.
    5. Ivana Komunjer & Michael T. Owyang, 2012. "Multivariate Forecast Evaluation and Rationality Testing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1066-1080, November.
    6. Gneiting, Tilmann, 2011. "Quantiles as optimal point forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 197-207, April.
    7. Carlos Capistr¡N & Allan Timmermann, 2009. "Disagreement and Biases in Inflation Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2-3), pages 365-396, March.
    8. Gneiting, Tilmann, 2011. "Quantiles as optimal point forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 197-207.
    9. Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Evaluating German business cycle forecasts under an asymmetric loss function," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2010(1), pages 1-18.
    10. Kostas Mouratidis & Dimitris Kenourgios & Aris Samitas, 2010. "Evaluating currency crisis:A multivariate Markov switching approach," Working Papers 2010018, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2010.
    11. Carlos Capistrán & Allan Timmermann, 2009. "Disagreement and Biases in Inflation Expectations," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2‐3), pages 365-396, March.
    12. Conrad, Christian, 2017. "When does information on forecast variance improve the performance of a combined forecast?," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168200, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann, 2016. "Economic Forecasting," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10740.
    14. Clements, Michael P., 2006. "Internal consistency of survey respondentsíforecasts: Evidence based on the Survey of Professional Forecasters," Economic Research Papers 269742, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. Pierdzioch, Christian & Risse, Marian & Rohloff, Sebastian, 2014. "The international business cycle and gold-price fluctuations," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 292-305.
    16. Joanna Bruzda, 2020. "Multistep quantile forecasts for supply chain and logistics operations: bootstrapping, the GARCH model and quantile regression based approaches," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 28(1), pages 309-336, March.
    17. Clements, Michael P., 2010. "Explanations of the inconsistencies in survey respondents' forecasts," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 536-549, May.
    18. Wang, Yiyao & Lee, Tae-Hwy, 2014. "Asymmetric loss in the Greenbook and the Survey of Professional Forecasters," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 235-245.
    19. Emilio Zanetti Chini, 2018. "Forecaster’s utility and forecasts coherence," DEM Working Papers Series 145, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:jof:jforec:v:29:y:2010:i:5:p:476-485. 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: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/2966 .

    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.