Policy analysts are accustomed to thinking in terms of tools and instruments. Yet an authoritative examination of the tools which have been developed to formulate new policies is missing. This book is the first of its kind to distinguish the defining characteristics of the main policy...

Point forecasts can be interpreted as functionals (i.e., point summaries) of predictive distributions. We extend methodology for the identification of the functional based on time series of point forecasts and associated realizations. Focusing on state‐dependent quantiles and expectiles, we...