In evaluating prediction models, many researchers flank comparative ex-ante prediction experiments by significance tests on accuracy improvement, such as the Diebold-Mariano test. We argue that basing the choice of prediction models on such significance tests is problematic, as this practice may...

Abstract Comparative ex-ante prediction experiments over expanding subsamples are a popular tool for the task of selecting the best forecasting model class in finite samples of practical relevance. Flanking such a horse race by predictive-accuracy tests, such as the test by Diebold and Mariano...

The problem of detecting unit roots in univariate and multivariate time series data is treated as a problem of multiple decisions instead of a testing problem, as is otherwise common in the econometric and statistical literature. Four examples for such multiple decision designs are considered:...

We propose a bivariate structural time series framework to decompose GDP and the unemployment rate into their trend, cyclical, and irregular components. We implement Okun's law by a generalised version of the common cycles restriction allowing for a phase shift between the two cycles and add a...

This paper deals with optimal window width choice in non-parametric lag- or spectral window estimation of the spectral density of a stationary zero-mean process. Several approaches are reviewed: the cross-validation based methods described by Hurvich (1985), Beltrao & Bloomfield (1987) and...

The problem of optimal decision among unit roots, trend stationarity, and trend stationarity with structural breaks is considered. Each class is represented by a hierarchically random process whose parameters are distributed in a non-informative way. The prior frequency for all three processes...

A two-regime self-exciting threshold autoregressive process is estimated for quarterly aggregate GDP of the fifteen countries that compose the European Union, and the forecasts from this nonlinear model are compared, by means of a Monte Carlo simulation, with those from a simple autoregressive...

We suggest a theoretical basis for the comparative evaluation of forecasts. Instead of the general assumption that the data is generated from a stochastic model, we classify three stages of prediction experiments: pure non-stochastic prediction of given data, stochastic prediction of given data,...

This paper examines the long-run dynamics and the cyclical structure of the US stock market using fractional integration techniques, specifically a version of the tests of Robinson (1994a) which allows for unit (or fractional) roots both at the zero (long-run) and at the cyclical frequencies. We...

For many economic time-series variables that are observed regularly and frequently, for example weekly, the underlying activity is not distributed uniformly across the year. For the aim of predicting annual data, one may consider temporal aggregation into larger subannual units based on an...