We used 59 biographical variables to create a “bio-index” for forecasting U.S. presidential elections. The bio-index method counts the number of variables for which a candidate rates favourably, and the forecast is that the candidate with the highest score would win the popular vote. The...

Policymakers need to know whether prediction is possible and if so whether any proposed forecasting method will provide forecasts that are substantively more accurate than those from the relevant benchmark method. Inspection of global temperature data suggests that it is subject to irregular...

I examined six ways of selecting forecasting methods: Convenience, “what’s easy,” is inexpensive, but risky. Market popularity, “what others do,” sounds appealing but is unlikely to be of value because popularity and success may not be related and because it overlooks some methods....

This paper examines a strategy for structuring one type of domain knowledge for use in extrapolation. It does so by representing information about causality and using this domain knowledge to select and combine forecasts. We use five categories to express causal impacts upon trends: growth,...