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,...

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...

The paper investigates the extent to which the dollar/sterling exchange rate fluctuations affect coffee and cocoa futures prices on the London LIFFE and the New York CSCE by means of multivariate GARCH models - under the assumption that traders in perfectly competitive markets have equal access...

This paper analyzes the relationship between stock returns and exchange rate changes in international markets and examines how well exchange rate volatility explains movements in stock market returns. The model-based predictions are evaluated on several cost functions. Results from such analysis...

Using data from Germany, Japan, UK, and the U.S., we explore possible threshold cointegration in nominal short- and long-run interest rates with corresponding inflation rates. Traditional cointegration implies perfect mean reversion in real rates and hence confirms the Fisher hypothesis....

Tests for relative predictive accuracy have become a widespread addendum to forecast comparisons. Many empirical research reports conclude that the difference between the entertained forecasting models is 'insignificant'. This paper collects arguments that cast doubt on the usefulness of...

Many macroeconometric models depict situations where the shares of the major demand aggregates in output are stable over time. The joint dynamic behavior of the considered demand aggregate and output may thus be approximated by a cointegrated vector autoregression. However, the shares of many...

This paper explores the seasonal cycles of European agricultural commodity prices. We focus on three food crops (barley, soft and durum wheat) and on beef. We investigate whether seasonality is deterministic or unit-root stochastic and whether seasonal cycle for specific agricultural commodities...

This paper uses Monte Carlo techniques to assess the loss in terms of forecast accuracy which is incurred when the true DGP exhibits parameter instability which is either overlooked or incorrectly modelled. We find that the loss is considerable when a FCM is estimated instead of the true TVCM,...