We compare two approaches to using information about the signs of structural shocks at specific dates within a structural vector autoregression (SVAR): imposing 'narrative restrictions' (NR) on the shock signs in an otherwise setidentified SVAR; and casting the information about the shock signs...

We consider estimation and inference about the effects of a policy in the absence of a control group. We obtain unbiased estimators of individual (heterogeneous) treatment effects and a consistent and asymptotically normal estimator of the average treatment effects, based on forecasting...

We propose a method for forecasting individual outcomes and estimating random effects in linear panel data models and value-added models when the panel has a short time dimension. The method is robust, trivial to implement and requires minimal assumptions. The idea is to take a weighted average...

We provide an extensive evaluation of the predictive performance of the U.S. yield curve for U.S. GDP growth by using a new test for forecast breakdown as well as a variety of in-sample and out-of-sample testing procedures. Empirical research over the past decades uncovered a strong predictive...

The goal of this paper is to develop formal techniques for analyzing the relative in-sample performance of two competing, misspecified models in the presence of possible data instability. The central idea of our methodology is to propose a measure of the models' local relative performance: the...

We propose a new family of density functions that possess both flexibility and closed form expressions for moments and anti-derivatives, making them particularly appealing for applications. We illustrate its usefulness by applying our new family to obtain density forecasts of U.S. inflation. Our...

We argue that the current framework for predictive ability testing (e.g., West, 1996) is not necessarily useful for real-time forecast selection, i.e., for assessing which of two competing forecasting methods will perform better in the future. We propose an alternative framework for...

We propose a framework for out-of-sample predictive ability testing and forecast selection designed for use in the realistic situation in which the forecasting model is possibly misspecified, due to unmodeled dynamics, unmodeled heterogeneity, incorrect functional form, or any combination of...

We explore convenient analytic properties of distributions constructed as mixtures of scaled and shifted t-distributions. A feature that makes this family particularly desirable for econometric applications is that it possesses closed-form expressions for its anti-derivatives (e.g., the...

We provide an extensive evaluation of the predictive performance of the US yield curve for US gross domestic product growth by using new tests for forecast breakdown, in addition to a variety of in-sample and out-of-sample evaluation procedures. Empirical research over the past decades has...