Time scale evaluation of economic forecasts

A maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform is used to obtain time scale decompositions of economic forecasts and their errors. The generated time scale components can be used in loss measures and tests for comparing forecast accuracy to evaluate whether the forecasts accurately capture the cyclical features of the data.     

Forecast content and content horizons for some important macroeconomic time series

Abstract.  The information content of statistical forecasts of approximately stationary quantities tends to decline as the forecast horizon increases, and there exists a maximum horizon beyond which forecasts cannot provide discernibly more information about the variable than is present in the unconditional mean (the content horizon ). The pattern of decay of forecast content (or skill) with increasing horizon is well known for many types of meteorological forecasts; by contrast, little generally accepted information about these patterns or content horizons is available for economic variables. In this paper we estimate content horizons for a variety of macroeconomic quantities; more generally, we characterize the pattern of decay of forecast content as we project farther into the future. We find a wide variety of results for the different macroeconomic quantities, with models for some quantities providing useful content several years into the future, for other quantities providing negligible content beyond one or two months or quarters.     

Multi-horizon inflation forecasts using disaggregated data

In this paper we use multi-horizon evaluation techniques to produce monthly inflation forecasts for up to twelve months ahead. The forecasts are based on individual seasonal time series models that consider both, deterministic and stochastic seasonality, and on disaggregated Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. After selecting the best forecasting model for each index, we compare the individual forecasts to forecasts produced using two methods that aggregate hierarchical time series, the bottom-up method and an optimal combination approach. Applying these techniques to 16 indices of the Mexican CPI, we find that the best forecasts for headline inflation are able to compete with those taken from surveys of experts.     

Forecasting the probability of US recessions: a Probit and dynamic factor modelling approach

Abstract Quantifying the probability of U.S. recessions has become increasingly important since August 2007. In a data‐rich environment, this paper is the first to apply a Probit model to common factors extracted from a large set of explanatory variables to model and forecast recession probability. The results show the advantages of the proposed approach over many existing models. Simulated real‐time analysis captures all recessions since 1980. The proposed model also detects a significant jump in the next six‐month recession probability based on data up to November 2007, one year before the formal declaration of the recent recession by the NBER.     

Inflation targeting in Latin America: Empirical analysis using GARCH models

This paper studies inflation dynamics in eight Latin American countries, some of which have adopted formal inflation targets (IT) as their monetary policy frameworks. We analyze the possible benefits associated with IT, not only in terms of inflation level and volatility, but also regarding other nonlinear characteristics of these series, such as volatility persistence or the fulfillment of the Friedman hypothesis. To describe inflation dynamics we use an unobserved components model, where each component can follow a GARCH type process. Once we estimate the model, the main findings of the empirical exercise confirm the favorable performance of IT.     

Nonlinear interest rate reaction functions for the UK

We empirically analyze Taylor-type equations for short-term interest rates in the United Kingdom using quarterly data from 1970Q1 to 2006Q2. Starting from strong evidence against a simple linear Taylor rule, we model nonlinearities using logistic smooth transition regression (LSTR) models. The LSTR models with time-varying parameters consistently track actual interest rate movements better than a linear model with constant parameters. Our preferred LSTR model uses lagged interest rates as a transition variable and suggests that in times of recessions the Bank of England puts more weight on the output gap and less so on inflation. A reverse pattern is observed in non-recession periods. Parameters of the model change less frequently after 1992, when an inflation target range was announced. We conclude that for the analysis of historical monetary policy, the LSTR approach is a viable alternative to linear reaction functions.     

Real-time data revisions and the PCE measure of inflation

This paper tracks data revisions in the Personal Consumption Expenditure using the exclusions-from-core inflation persistence model. Keeping the number of observations the same, the regression parameters of earlier vintages of real-time data, beginning with vintage 1996:Q1, are tested for coincidence against the regression parameters of the last vintage of real-time data, used in this paper, which is vintage 2008:Q2 in a parametric and two nonparametric frameworks. The effects of data revisions are not detectable in the vast majority of cases in the parametric model, but the flexibility of the two nonparametric models is able to utilize the data revisions.     

Empirical determination of aggregate demand and supply curves: The example of the RWI Business Cycle Model

Macroeconometric models are often criticised for being too complex and difficult to read in theoretical terms. To overcome these difficulties, Hickman suggested the calculation of a model's implicit aggregate demand/supply (AD/AS) structure. The method helps to understand models and their main properties in theoretical terms and facilitates detailed model comparisons. This paper uses the AD/AS–IS/LM apparatus to analyse the simulation properties of the RWI (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) Business Cycle Model, a medium-sized short-term macroeconometric model for Germany. The results confirm theoretical expectations for AD and AS elasticities and reveal particular reactions linked to peculiar model specifications such as an endogenous government sector. The results are also much in line with a previous study in a multi-country model context.     

Cost-based Phillips Curve forecasts of inflation

It is a well-established idea that prices are a function of marginal cost, yet estimating a reliable measure of marginal cost is difficult to do. Stock and Watson (1999) use the Phillips Curve to forecast inflation for a variety of existing activity variables that researchers commonly use to proxy for marginal cost. This paper uses a similar type of approach to examine the performance of a new candidate for the activity variable, which is marginal cost measured following the theoretical methodology of Bils (1987), which we find to be simple yet powerful when implemented empirically. We then use the Phillips Curve to conduct pseudo out-of-sample inflation forecasts for the US using: output, unemployment, hours, the labor share, the capacity utilization rate, and the new measure of marginal cost. For almost all cases, forecast errors are lowest in the regressions with the new marginal cost variable, indicating that this new measure is an improvement over previous attempts to proxy for marginal cost.     

Policy analysis in real time using IMF's monetary model

We investigate to what extent estimated relationships of the IMF's monetary model and their policy implications are sample dependent. We observe that estimates of the model's key parameters and model-based measures of macroeconomic disequilibria are highly dependent on the data vintage employed. Changes in parameter estimates solely due to data revisions are found to be much smaller than those owing to parameter instability, possibly reflecting model misspecification. Moreover, instability in parameter estimates contributes to more uncertainty in assessments of macroeconomic disequilibria than data revisions. Analyses based on a version of the model in difference form are also found to be quite sensitive to the data vintage employed, although to a lesser extent than those based on the standard version of the model with variables in levels.     

The type-agent core for exchange economies with asymmetric information

The type-agent core is a new solution concept for exchange economies with asymmetric information. It coincides with the set of subgame-perfect equilibrium outcomes of a simple competitive screening game. Uninformed intermediaries help the agents to cooperate in an attempt to make some profit. The paper extends the work of Perez-Castrillo [Cooperative outcomes through non-cooperative games, Games Econ. Behav. 7 (1994) 428-440] to exchange economies with non-transferable utility and asymmetric information. The type-agent core is a subset of Wilson's coarse core [Wilson, Information, efficiency, and the core of an economy, Econometrica 46 (1978) 807-816]. It is never empty, even though it may be a strict subset of Wilson's fine core. In addition, it converges towards the set of constrained market equilibria as the economy is replicated.     

A Bayesian method of combining judgmental and model-based density forecasts

This paper introduces a formal method of combining expert and model density forecasts when the sample of past forecasts is unavailable. It works directly with the expert forecast density and endogenously delivers weights for forecast combination, relying on probability rules only. The empirical part of the paper illustrates how the framework can be applied in forecasting US inflation by mixing density forecasts from an autoregressive model and the Survey of Professional Forecasters.     

Optimal monetary policy and economic growth

A question at the center of many analyses of optimal monetary policy is, why do central banks never implement the Friedman rule? To the list of answers to this question, we add neoclassical production (specifically, the Tobin effect) as one possible explanation. To that end, we study an overlapping generations economy with capital where limited communication and stochastic relocation create an endogenous transactions role for fiat money. We assume a production function with a knowledge externality (Romer style) that nests economies with endogenous growth (AK form) and those with no long-run growth (the Diamond model). The Tobin effect is shown to be always operative. Under CRRA preferences, a mild degree of social increasing returns is sufficient (but not necessary) for some positive inflation to dominate zero inflation and for the Friedman rule to be sub-optimal, irrespective of the degree of risk aversion.     

New models of trader beliefs and their application for explaining financial bubbles

One challenging and exigent problem in behavior finance is how to establish verifiable models describing the appearance and burst of price bubbles. Current results are enhanced in this paper through a series of improvement as follows: new models are proposed for describing the return and dividend processes, especially the trader's behavior with the adaptive expectation belief and the bounded rational expectation belief, respectively; with these models, we establish dynamical systems in terms of the price-to-earnings ratio and the forecast-to-earnings ratio; the detailed solution and asymptotic analysis of these equations provide new, elaborate and quantitative explanations for both the formation and disappearance of different price bubbles; inspired by the herd behavior framework, a new random belief evolutionary mechanism is devised to model the belief change between two beliefs; a specific genetic algorithm is designed to efficiently estimate model parameters; simulation and empirical studies are carried out to illustrate the application of new methods. Both theoretical and empirical results sufficiently show the reasonability, practicality, efficiency and robustness of our new models and methods for properly explaining the appearance and burst of different kinds of price bubbles.     

Competitive equilibria in semi-algebraic economies

This paper develops a method to compute the equilibrium correspondence for exchange economies with semi-algebraic preferences. Given a class of semi-algebraic exchange economies parameterized by individual endowments and possibly other exogenous variables such as preference parameters or asset payoffs, there exists a semi-algebraic correspondence that maps parameters to positive numbers such that for generic parameters each competitive equilibrium can be associated with an element of the correspondence and each endogenous variable (i.e. prices and consumptions) is a rational function of that value of the correspondence and the parameters.This correspondence can be characterized as zeros of a univariate polynomial equation that satisfy additional polynomial inequalities. This polynomial as well as the rational functions that determine equilibrium can be computed using versions of Buchberger's algorithm which is part of most computer algebra systems. The computation is exact whenever the input data (i.e. preference parameters etc.) are rational. Therefore, the result provides theoretical foundations for a systematic analysis of multiplicity in applied general equilibrium.     

Regime-switching factor models in which the number of factors defines the regime

We develop regime-switching factor models in which the number of factors determines the operative economic regime. To illustrate the proposed methodology, we analyze the covariance structure of a widely studied set of 25 equity portfolios.     

The vanishing role of money in the macro-economy: An empirical investigation for India

The recent de-emphasizing of the role of “money” in both theoretical macroeconomics as well as in the practical conduct of monetary policy sits uneasily with the idea that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Empirical evidence has, however, been accumulating pointing to an important leading indicator role for money and credit aggregates with respect to long term inflationary trends. Such a role could arise from monetary aggregates furnishing a nominal anchor for inflationary expectations, from their influence on the term structure of interest rates and from their affecting transaction costs in markets. Our paper attempts to assess the informational content role of money in the Indian economy by a separation of these effects across time scales and frequency bands, using the techniques of wavelet analysis and band spectral analysis respectively. Our results indicate variability of causal relations across frequency ranges and time scales, as also occasional causal reversals.     

The effects of fiscal policy on economic activity in Finland

This study analyzes whether fiscal policy decisions have real effects on the economy of Finland, and if they do, what are the strength and durations of the effects. We utilise the Vector Stochastic Process with Dummy Variables (VSPD) method in our empirical work. This approach is a suitable tool to study event-based episodes. Fiscal policy shocks do have an effect on the economic activity of Finland when the time period 1990–2007 is investigated. A positive tax shock (or a policy that increases public sector revenues) seems to have a positive effect on Investment and GDP but the response of private consumption is mixed. Results clearly indicate that increase in Government spending crowds out private sector activity, and the effect takes place sooner than with the Revenue variable in question. This is a clear evidence for the crowding out effect.