We study the benefits of forecast combinations based on forecast-encompassing tests relative to uniformly weighted forecast averages across rival models. For a realistic simulation design, we generate multivariate time-series samples of size 40 to 200 from a macroeconomic DSGE-VAR model....

We consider forecasting with factors, variables and both, modeling in-sample using Autometrics so all principal components and variables can be included jointly, while tackling multiple breaks by impulse-indicator saturation.  A forecast-error taxonomy for factor models highlights the impacts...

When comparing two competing approximate models using a particular loss function, the one having smallest `expected true error' for that loss function is expected to lie closest to the underlying data generating process (DGP) given this loss function and is therefore to be preferred. In this...

In this paper we study factor models for security returns on financial markets, where some pervasive factors are common across all securities and other pervasive factors prevail only within some groups of securities but not in others. This kind of structured factors allow a more nuanced analysis...

In this paper we face the fitting versus forecasting paradox with the objective of realizing an optimal Early Warning System to better describe and predict past and future sovereign defaults. We do this by proposing a new Regression Tree-based model that signals a potential crisis whenever...

This study investigates usefulness of business tendency surveys in industrial sector for out-of-sample prediction of growth of industrial production in Russia. A special attention is paid to performance of survey-augmented models during the recent Great Recession 2008/2009. Using the real-time...