Purpose: To respond to issues posed in the four commentaries on Armstrong, Du, Green and Graefe (this issue) regarding the immediate usefulness of that paper’s test of advertisements’ compliance with persuasion principles, and regarding the need for further research. Approach: Address...

The assumptions of multiple regression analysis are not met in many practical forecasting situations and, as a result, regression models are insufficiently conservative. We tested the effect on forecast accuracy of applying three evidence-based forecasting guidelines to 18 political economy...

Forecasting is concerned with making statements about the as yet unknown. There are many ways that people go about deriving forecasts. This entry is concerned primarily with procedures that have performed well in empirical studies that contrast the accuracy of alternative methods.Evidence about...

The field of forecasting is concerned with making statements about matters that are currently unknown. The terms "forecast," "prediction," "projections," and "prognosis" are interchangeable as commonly used. Forecasting is also concerned with the effective presentation and use of forecasts

Traditional groups meetings are an inefficient and ineffective method for making forecasts and decisions. We compare two structured alternatives to traditional meetings: the Delphi technique and prediction markets. Delphi is relatively simple and cheap to implement and has been adopted for...

The Golden Rule of Forecasting is a general rule that applies to all forecasting problems. The Rule was developed using logic and was tested against evidence from previously published comparison studies. The evidence suggests that a single violation of the Golden Rule is likely to increase...

This article proposes a unifying theory, or Golden Rule, of forecasting. The Golden Rule of Forecasting is to be conservative. A conservative forecast is consistent with cumulative knowledge about the present and the past. To be conservative, forecasters must seek out and use all knowledge...

The Golden Rule of Forecasting counsels forecasters to be conservative when making forecasts. We tested the value of three of the four Golden Rule guidelines that apply to causal models: modify effect estimates to reflect uncerainty; use all important variables; and combine forecasts from...

Problem. Do conservative econometric models that comply with the Golden Rule of Forecasting provide more accurate forecasts?Methods. To test the effects of forecast accuracy, we applied three evidence-based guidelines to 19 published regression models used for forecasting 154 elections in...

Traditional groups meetings are an inefficient and ineffective method for making forecasts and decisions. We compare two structured alternatives to traditional meetings: the Delphi technique and prediction markets. Delphi is relatively simple and cheap to implement and has been adopted for...