In this paper we investigate whether and how far density forecasts sensibly can be combined to produce a "better" pooled density forecast. In so doing we bring together two important but hitherto largely unrelated areas of the forecasting literature in economics, density forecasting and forecast...

This paper assesses the accuracy of individuals’ expectations of their financial circumstances, as reported in the British Household Panel Survey, as predictors of outcomes and identifies what factors influence their reliability. Bivariate ordered probit models, appropriately identified, are...

*There is widespread concern about rising levels of debt prompted by the rising overall levels of debt and the increasing reports of people having difficulties in managing their debts. *Analysis of the data on wealth and borrowing in the British Household Panel Survey in 1995 and 2000 finds that...

We seek to understand what can be inferred from the movement of and revisions to fixed-event density forecasts. This involves extending efficiency tests used to examine fixed-event forecasts from the point to density case. The extension requires the revision to a density forecast to be reduced...

Clark and McCracken (2008) argue that combining real-time point forecasts from VARs of output, prices and interest rates improves point forecast accuracy in the presence of uncertain model instabilities. In this paper, we generalize their approach to consider forecast density combinations and...

This paper generalizes the probability method of quantification [Carlson and Parkin, Economica, 1975] to the variance facilitating the quantification of business survey data which ask individuals whether or not they are uncertain. In an application to UK manufacturing traditional time-series and...

Survey data are widely used to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. This paper proposes an indicator based on a theoretically consistent procedure for quantifying firm-level survey responses that are ordered and categorical. Firms' survey responses...

Business survey data are used widely as they offer timely information about the state of the economy. This paper addresses the problem of how best to infer a quantitative signal about economic growth from qualitative business survey data. A method drawing on the forecast combination literature...

This paper brings together two important but hitherto largely unrelated areas of the forecasting literature, density forecasting and forecast combination. It proposes a simple data-driven approach to direct combination of density forecasts using optimal weights.

Traditionally density forecasts of inflation and output growth are published separately without any obvious indication of how they are related. But ‘flexible’ inflation targeting motivates concern with the underlying bivariate density forecast. This paper, therefore, suggests use of copulae...