IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedcwq/98821.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Empirical Evaluation of Some Long-Horizon Macroeconomic Forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Kurt Graden Lunsford
  • Kenneth D. West

Abstract

We use long-run annual cross-country data for 10 macroeconomic variables to evaluate the long-horizon forecast distributions of six forecasting models. The variables we use range from ones having little serial correlation to ones having persistence consistent with unit roots. Our forecasting models include simple time series models and frequency domain models developed in Müller and Watson (2016). For plausibly stationary variables, an AR(1) model and a frequency domain model that does not require the user to take a stand on the order of integration appear reasonably well calibrated for forecast horizons of 10 and 25 years. For plausibly non-stationary variables, a random walk model appears reasonably well calibrated for forecast horizons of 10 and 25 years. No model appears well calibrated for forecast horizons of 50 years.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Graden Lunsford & Kenneth D. West, 2024. "An Empirical Evaluation of Some Long-Horizon Macroeconomic Forecasts," Working Papers 24-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:98821
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202420
    Note: Has appendix.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202420
    File Function: Persistent link.
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/working-papers/2024/wp2420.pdf
    File Function: Full text.
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.clevelandfed.org/-/media/project/clevelandfedtenant/clevelandfedsite/publications/working-papers/2024/wp2420_appendix.pdf
    File Function: Appendix.
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-wp-202420?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Nordhaus, 2018. "Projections and Uncertainties about Climate Change in an Era of Minimal Climate Policies," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 333-360, August.
    2. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2019. "Priors for the Long Run," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 114(526), pages 565-580, April.
    3. Eben Lazarus & Daniel J. Lewis & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2018. "HAR Inference: Recommendations for Practice Rejoinder," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 574-575, October.
    4. Makridakis, Spyros & Hyndman, Rob J. & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2020. "Forecasting in social settings: The state of the art," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 15-28.
    5. Joseph Haubrich & George Pennacchi & Peter Ritchken, 2012. "Inflation Expectations, Real Rates, and Risk Premia: Evidence from Inflation Swaps," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(5), pages 1588-1629.
    6. Diebold, Francis X & Gunther, Todd A & Tay, Anthony S, 1998. "Evaluating Density Forecasts with Applications to Financial Risk Management," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 863-883, November.
    7. Granger, Clive W.J. & Jeon, Yongil, 2007. "Long-term forecasting and evaluation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 539-551.
    8. Eben Lazarus & Daniel J. Lewis & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2018. "HAR Inference: Recommendations for Practice," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 541-559, October.
    9. Ulrich K. Müller & Mark W. Watson, 2016. "Measuring Uncertainty about Long-Run Predictions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(4), pages 1711-1740.
    10. Ulrich K. Muller & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2022. "An Econometric Model of International Growth Dynamics for Long-Horizon Forecasting," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(5), pages 857-876, December.
    11. Tilmann Gneiting & Fadoua Balabdaoui & Adrian E. Raftery, 2007. "Probabilistic forecasts, calibration and sharpness," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(2), pages 243-268, April.
    12. Gneiting, Tilmann & Raftery, Adrian E., 2007. "Strictly Proper Scoring Rules, Prediction, and Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 359-378, March.
    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. Warne, Anders, 2023. "DSGE model forecasting: rational expectations vs. adaptive learning," Working Paper Series 2768, European Central Bank.
    3. Alexander Henzi & Johanna F Ziegel, 2022. "Valid sequential inference on probability forecast performance [A comparison of the ECMWF, MSC, and NCEP global ensemble prediction systems]," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 109(3), pages 647-663.
    4. Geweke, John & Amisano, Gianni, 2011. "Optimal prediction pools," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 164(1), pages 130-141, September.
    5. Song, Haiyan & Wen, Long & Liu, Chang, 2019. "Density tourism demand forecasting revisited," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 379-392.
    6. Antonio Bracale & Pasquale De Falco, 2015. "An Advanced Bayesian Method for Short-Term Probabilistic Forecasting of the Generation of Wind Power," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-22, September.
    7. Tsyplakov, Alexander, 2013. "Evaluation of Probabilistic Forecasts: Proper Scoring Rules and Moments," MPRA Paper 45186, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Wang, Xiaoqian & Hyndman, Rob J. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2023. "Forecast combinations: An over 50-year review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1518-1547.
    9. Bjørnland, Hilde C. & Gerdrup, Karsten & Jore, Anne Sofie & Smith, Christie & Thorsrud, Leif Anders, 2011. "Weights and pools for a Norwegian density combination," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 61-76, January.
    10. Thordis L. Thorarinsdottir & Tilmann Gneiting, 2010. "Probabilistic forecasts of wind speed: ensemble model output statistics by using heteroscedastic censored regression," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(2), pages 371-388, April.
    11. Alexander Henzi & Johanna F. Ziegel & Tilmann Gneiting, 2021. "Isotonic distributional regression," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 83(5), pages 963-993, November.
    12. Tsyplakov Alexander, 2010. "The links between inflation and inflation uncertainty at the longer horizon," EERC Working Paper Series 10/09e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    13. Ilmari Juutilainen & Juha Roning, 2010. "How to compare interpretatively different models for the conditional variance function," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6), pages 983-997.
    14. Allen, Sam & Koh, Jonathan & Segers, Johan & Ziegel, Johanna, 2024. "Tail calibration of probabilistic forecasts," LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA 2024018, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    15. Gneiting, Tilmann, 2011. "Quantiles as optimal point forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 197-207, April.
    16. Peter McAdam & Anders Warne, 2024. "Density forecast combinations: The real‐time dimension," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1153-1172, August.
    17. Marc-Oliver Pohle, 2020. "The Murphy Decomposition and the Calibration-Resolution Principle: A New Perspective on Forecast Evaluation," Papers 2005.01835, arXiv.org.
    18. Tsyplakov, Alexander, 2014. "Theoretical guidelines for a partially informed forecast examiner," MPRA Paper 55017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Graziani, Carlo & Rosner, Robert & Adams, Jennifer M. & Machete, Reason L., 2021. "Probabilistic recalibration of forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-27.
    20. C. Alexander & M. Coulon & Y. Han & X. Meng, 2024. "Evaluating the discrimination ability of proper multi-variate scoring rules," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 857-883, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fractional integration; forecast interval; low frequency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:fip:fedcwq:98821. 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: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.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.