Combining forecasts for universally optimal performance

There are two potential directions of forecast combination: combining for adaptation and combining for improvement. The former direction targets the performance of the best forecaster, while the latter attempts to combine forecasts to improve on the best forecaster. It is often useful to infer which goal is more appropriate so that a suitable combination method may be used. This paper proposes an AI-AFTER approach that can not only determine the appropriate goal of forecast combination but also intelligently combine the forecasts to automatically achieve the proper goal. As a result of this approach, the combined forecasts from AI-AFTER perform well universally in both adaptation and improvement scenarios. The proposed forecasting approach is implemented in our R package AIafter, which is available at https://github.com/weiqian1/AIafter.     

Panel LM unit root tests with level and trend shifts

This paper considers a Lagrange multiplier (LM) based panel unit root test that allows for heterogeneous structural breaks in both the intercepts and slopes of a series. We note that many popular time series variables are likely to exhibit changing means and/or trends over time. Given that the usual tests will depend on the nuisance parameters indicating the locations of the trend breaks, we adopt a transformation procedure that makes our new panel unit root tests invariant to the nuisance parameters. To illustrate the importance of the power gain provided by our test, we examine the convergence hypothesis using relative ratios of per capita health care expenditures in 20 OECD countries. Our results provide evidence that the convergence hypothesis is supported.     

中国股市行业风险与宏观经济之间的风险传导机制

本文采用行业收益率溢出指数度量股市行业风险,并进一步研究中国股市行业风险与宏观经济的相互影响,同时引入股息率和利率两个中介渠道深入挖掘其传导机制。我们运用GARCH-in-Mean模型对股市行业风险和宏观经济变量之间的一阶矩和二阶矩相互关系同时进行分析,结果发现,股市行业风险和宏观经济变量之间水平值和波动率都存在双向影响,对外溢出效应较大的行业起主导作用。此外,股市行业风险对宏观经济变量的影响方面,股息率和利率均起到中介渠道作用;宏观经济变量对股市行业风险的影响方面,只是利率起到中介渠道作用。股市行业风险与宏观经济的传导效应在不同时期差异显著。本文研究结论有助于深刻理解金融与实体经济之间的风险传导机制,对防范系统性风险、防止金融和实体经济“风险共振”以及提升金融服务实体经济能力等具有参考意义。     

‘I feel something is still missing’: leisure meanings of African refugee women in Canada

This research explored the leisure meanings of three African women, former refugees resettled in Canada. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this study revealed that leisure meanings were tightly bound in the women’s Christian faith, church, and faith community in affording them solace, socialisation, and community bonding. Furthermore, learning for leisure emphasised leisure for educational advancement, self-improvement, and knowledge-gain, to keep busy, and for companionship. Physically active leisures afforded fitness and fun, while nature-based leisure, particularly with friends, family, and their ethnocultural communities were important for restoration, nurturing relationships, and fostering social networks. These leisures also served to mitigate traumatic memories and stress. Because of the prominence of their Christian faith and the church as central to these women’s leisure, collaborative efforts by faith-based entities, leisure and recreation organisations and practitioners, settlement agencies, and mental health bodies, are recommended to effectively address the challenges and aspirations of resettled African women refugees through leisure.     

Climate Change and Preparations for the Tide of Traumatic Stress: Implications for Asia-Pacific Human Resources

Although attention to the business risks posed by natural disasters fueled by climate change has grown, the toll that disasters have on human resources in the form of traumatic stress is comparatively neglected. It is common for more than 20% of people exposed to natural disasters to develop traumatic stress disorders that can last for years. In the workplace, traumatic stress hurts attendance, the quantity and quality of output, and relationships. Fortunately, businesses can promote employee resilience and recovery. Given the Asia-Pacific region’s high risk of natural disasters, businesses operating there should include employees’ traumatic stress in their disaster preparedness.     

Distribution of residual autocorrelations for multiplicative seasonal ARMA models with uncorrelated but nonindependent error terms

In this paper, we consider portmanteau tests for testing the adequacy of multiplicative seasonal autoregressive moving‐average models under the assumption that the errors are uncorrelated but not necessarily independent. We relax the standard independence assumption on the error terms in order to extend the range of applications of the seasonal autoregressive moving‐average models. We study the asymptotic distributions of residual and normalized residual empirical autocovariances and autocorrelations under weak assumptions on noise. We establish the asymptotic behavior of the proposed statistics. A set of Monte Carlo experiments and an application to monthly mean total sunspot number are presented.     

The impact of the challenge and hindrance stress on hotel employees interpersonal citizenship behaviors: Psychological capital as a moderator

This study investigates the relationships between challenge and hindrance stressors and hotel employees’ interpersonal citizenship behaviors (ICB). The study also tests the moderating role of hotel employees’ psychological capital (PsyCap) on the aforementioned relationships. Data were collected from 213 U.S. hotel frontline employees. The results showed that both challenge and hindrance stress had a negative relationship with ICB. PsyCap was found to moderate both relationships. Implications for hospitality researchers and industry practitioners are discussed along with the limitations and suggested avenues for future research.     

Asymmetry,Complementarities, and State Dependence in Federal Reserve Forecasts

Forecasts are a central component of policymaking; the Federal Reserve's forecasts are published in a document called the Greenbook. Previous studies of the Greenbook's inflation forecasts have found them to be rationalizable but asymmetric if considering particular subperiods, for example, before and after the Volcker appointment. In these papers, forecasts are analyzed in isolation, assuming policymakers value them independently. We analyze the Greenbook forecasts in a framework in which the forecast errors for different variables are allowed to interact. We find that allowing the losses to interact makes the unemployment forecasts virtually symmetric, the output forecasts symmetric prior to the Volcker appointment, and the inflation forecasts symmetric after the onset of the Great Moderation.     

COVID-19-induced layoff,survivors’ COVID-19-related stress and performance in hospitality industry: The moderating role of social support

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the hospitality industry hard globally, resulting in millions of employees being laid off. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this study aims to empirically examine how and when COVID-19-induced layoff influences employees’ in-role and extra-role performance in the hospitality industry. We tested this model by using field data collected from 302 employees and their supervisors in China across two waves. Results revealed that COVID-19-induced layoff increases survivors’ COVID-19-related stress, which in turn leads to decreased in-role and extra-role performance. The strength of these indirect effects is mitigated by perceived family support against COVID-19. Unexpectedly, perceived organizational support against COVID-19 intensifies these indirect effects. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are further discussed.