We propose new methods for comparing the relative out-of-sample forecasting performance of two competing models in the presence of possible instabilities. The main idea is to develop a measure of the relative ìlocal forecasting performanceî for the two models, and to investigate its stability...

We derive a new family of probability densities that have the property of closed-form integrability. This flexible family finds a variety of applications, of which we illustrate density forecasting from models of the AR-ARCH class for U.S. inflation. We find that the hypernormal distribution for...

In this paper we compare the relative efficiency of different methods of forecasting the aggregate of spatially correlated variables. Small sample simulations confirm the asymptotic result that improved forecasting performance can be obtained by imposing a priori constraints on the amount of...

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...

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 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 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 out-of-sample...

This paper proposes tests for comparing the accuracy of density forecasts. The evaluation makes use of scoring rules, which are loss functions defined over the density forecast and the realizations of the variable. In particular, a logarithmic scoring rule leads to the development of asymptotic...

We propose a test for comparing the out-of-sample accuracy of competing density forecasts of a variable. The test is valid under general conditions: the data can be heterogeneous and the forecasts can be based on (nested or non-nested) parametric models or produced by semi- parametric,...