We show that "commodity currency" exchange rates have remarkably robust power in predicting global commodity prices, both in-sample and out-of-sample, and against a variety of alternative benchmarks. This result is of particular interest to policymakers, given the lack of deep forward markets in...

Although there is much interest in the future retail price of gasoline among consumers, industry analysts, and policymakers, it is widely believed that changes in the price of gasoline are essentially unforecastable given publicly available information. We explore a range of new forecasting...

We propose new methods for evaluating predictive densities in an environment where the estimation error of the parameters used to construct the densities is preserved asymptotically under the null hypothesis. The tests offer a simple way to evaluate the correct specification of predictive...

This paper investigates whether oil prices have a reliable and stable out-of-sample relationship with the Canadian/U.S dollar nominal exchange rate. Despite state-of-the-art methodologies, we find little systematic relation between oil prices and the exchange rate at the monthly and quarterly...

We propose new methods for evaluating predictive densities in an environment where the estimation error of the parameters used to construct the densities is preserved asymptotically under the null hypothesis. The tests offer a simple way to evaluate the correct specification of predictive...

We revisit the relation between stock market volatility and macroeconomic activity using a new class of component models that distinguish short-run from long-run movements. We formulate models with the long-term component driven by inflation and industrial production growth that are in terms of...

This paper proposes a framework to implement regression-based tests of predictive ability in unstable environments, including, in particular, forecast unbiasedness and efficiency tests, commonly referred to as tests of forecast rationality. Our framework is general: it can be applied to...

The goal of this paper is to develop formal tests to evaluate the relative in-sample per- formance of two competing, misspecified, non-nested models in the presence of possible data instability. Compared to previous approaches to model selection, which are based on measures of global...

Venice (Italy) is built on several islands inside a lagoon. It undergoes a periodical �ooding phenomenon, called "Acqua Alta" (AA). A system of mobile dams, called Mo.S.E., is currently under construction to protect it. When needed, several fl�oodgates will be lifted to separate the lagoon...

In the last 15 years, several Multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) models have appeared in the literature. Some recent research has begun to examine MGARCH specifications in terms of their out-of-sample forecasting performance. In this paper, we provide an empirical comparison of a set of models, namely...