Combining Economic Forecasts

It is well known that no particular forecasting agency dominates when the accuracy of economic forecasts of the UK is investigated. There are good reasons for believing that if forecasts differ, some combination of them will be an improvement over the individual forecasts. The problem is to determine what weights to attach to each forecast. Various methods have been suggested in the literature, including equal weights (averaging), optimal weights (linear regression), varying weights based on past performance, and the Bayesian approach. We review these methods and examine their performance for important macro-economic variables.     

预测组合权重更新的过程控制及分析

源于与决策分析的相关性,预测组合已经逐渐形成了一个重要的研究领域。为此,本文引进EWMA技术对预测组合权重更新的过程进行控制,从而提出一种能够应用于实际且简单有效的EWMA赋权方法。这种赋权方法能够确定预测组合权重应该何时更新,而不是机械地更新预测组合权重。本文额外针对各种赋权方法在旅游预测组合模型中的预测性能(全面预测性能和总均方根误差)和预测效率(权重更新频率)进行了经验评估。结果显示:EWMA赋权方法的预测性能优于传统的赋权方法,并与CUSUM赋权方法相似,同时该赋权方法获得了最小的权重更新频率。综合考虑预测性能和预测效率,EWMA赋权方法相比于其他赋权方法在旅游实际应用过程中更具优势。     

Determination of an Optimal Forecast Model for Ambulance Demand Using Goal Programming

A multistep approach to determining the optimal parameters of an exponential smoothing model was used to forecast emergency medical service (E.M.S.) demand for four counties of South Carolina. Daily emergency and routine (non-emergency) demand data were obtained and forecast statistics generated for each county sampled, using Winters' exponential smoothing model. A goal programme was formulated to combine forecast results for emergency calls with routine call forecasts. The goal programme gave a higher priority to accurate forecasting of emergency demand. The forecast model generated implicitly weights demand by severity and provides a reliable estimate of demand overall. The optimal parameter values for the smoothing model were obtained by minimizing the objective function value of the goal programming problem. The parameter values obtained were used to forecast demand for E.M.S. in the selected counties. The results of the model were compared to those using a multiple linear regression model and a single-objective-based exponential smoothing model for 2 months of data. When compared with two single-objective forecast models, the multiple-objective approach yielded more accurate forecasts and, therefore, was more cost-effective for the planner. The model presents and demonstrates a theoretical approach to improving the accuracy of ambulance demand forecasts. The possible impact of this approach on planning efficiency is discussed.     

The value of combining forecasts in inventory management – a case study in banking

Managing inventories in the face of uncertain stochastic demand requires an investment in safety stocks. These are related to the accuracy in forecasting future demands and the noise in the demand generation process. Reducing the demand forecasting error can free up capital and space, and reduce the operating costs of managing the inventories. A leading bank in Hong Kong consumes more than three hundred kinds of printed forms for its daily operations. A major problem of its inventory control system for the forms management is to forecast the monthly demand of these forms. In this study the idea of combining forecasts is introduced and its practical application is addressed. The individual forecasts come from well established time series models and the weights for combination are estimated with Quadratic Programming. The combined forecast is found to perform better than any of the individual forecasts.     

Using combined forecasts with changing weights for electricity demand profiling

Day-ahead half-hourly demand forecasts are required for scheduling and for calculating the daily electricity pool price. One approach predicts turning points on the demand curve and then produces half-hourly forecasts by a heuristic procedure, called profiling, which is based on a past demand curve. This paper investigates possible profiling improvements. Using a cubic smoothing spline in the heuristic leads to a slight improvement. Often, several past curves could reasonably be used in the profiling method. Consequently, there are often several demand curve forecasts available. Switching and smooth transition forecast combination models are considered. These models enable the combining weights to vary across the 48 half-hours, which is appealing as different forecasts may be more suitable for different periods. Several criteria are used to control the changing weights, including weather, and the methodology is extended to the case of more than two forecasts. Empirical analysis gives encouraging results.     

Numerical method for estimating multivariate conditional distributions

Summary  A computational framework for estimation of multivariate conditional distributions is presented. It allows the forecast of the joint distribution of target variables in dependence on explaining variables. The concept can be applied to general distribution families such as stable or hyperbolic distributions. The estimation is based on the numerical minimization of the cross entropy, using the Multi-Level Single-Linkage global optimization method. Nonlinear dependencies of conditional parameters can be modeled with help of general functional approximators such as multi-layer perceptrons. In applications, the information about a complete distribution of forecasts can be used to quantify the reliability of the forecast or for decision support. This is illustrated on a case study concerning the spare parts demand forecast. The improvement of the forecast error due to using non-Gaussian distributions is presented in another case study concerning the truck sales forecast.     

Combining ranked mean value forecasts

A methodology is developed for combining mean value forecasts using not only all the important statistics related to the past performance and the dependence of the individual forecasts, but also a rank ordering of the individual forecasts representing the belief of a decision maker about the future performance of the forecasts. The maximum likelihood combination of the forecasts turns out to be weighted linear combination of the individual forecasts, where the weights are a function of the rank order of the forecasts, correlation coefficients between the forecasts, and relative entropy information measures between the individual forecasts and the actual values. These weights are assessed once in the most general case and once in a special case where the forecasts are normally distributed. The sensitivity of the weights is also investigated. A sample application of this method for predicting U.S. hog prices is also presented.     

Temporal hierarchies with autocorrelation for load forecasting

We propose four different estimators that take into account the autocorrelation structure when reconciling forecasts in a temporal hierarchy. Combining forecasts from multiple temporal aggregation levels exploits information differences and mitigates model uncertainty, while reconciliation ensures a unified prediction that supports aligned decisions at different horizons. In previous studies, weights assigned to the forecasts were given by the structure of the hierarchy or the forecast error variances without considering potential autocorrelation in the forecast errors. Our first estimator considers the autocovariance matrix within each aggregation level. Since this can be difficult to estimate, we propose a second estimator that blends autocorrelation and variance information, but only requires estimation of the first-order autocorrelation coefficient at each aggregation level. Our third and fourth estimators facilitate information sharing between aggregation levels using robust estimates of the cross-correlation matrix and its inverse. We compare the proposed estimators in a simulation study and demonstrate their usefulness through an application to short-term electricity load forecasting in four price areas in Sweden. We find that by taking account of auto- and cross-covariances when reconciling forecasts, accuracy can be significantly improved uniformly across all frequencies and areas.     

Statistical post-processing of forecasts for extremes using bivariate brown-resnick processes with an application to wind gusts

To improve the forecasts of weather extremes, we propose a joint spatial model for the observations and the forecasts, based on a bivariate Brown-Resnick process. As the class of stationary bivariate Brown-Resnick processes is fully characterized by the class of pseudo cross-variograms, we contribute to the theorical understanding of pseudo cross-variograms refining the knowledge of the asymptotic behaviour of all their components and introducing a parsimonious, but flexible parametric model. Both findings are of interest in classical geostatistics on their own. The proposed model is applied to real observation and forecast data for extreme wind gusts at 119 stations in Northern Germany.     

Using clustering to improve sales forecasts in retail merchandising

Given sales forecasts for a set of items along with the standard deviation associated with each forecast, we propose a new method of combining forecasts using the concepts of clustering. Clusters of items are identified based on the similarity in their sales forecasts and then a common forecast is computed for each cluster of items. On a real dataset from a national retail chain we have found that the proposed method of combining forecasts produces significantly better sales forecasts than either the individual forecasts (forecasts without combining) or an alternate method of using a single combined forecast for all items in a product line sold by this retailer.     

Two Methodologies for the Linear Combination of Forecasts

Many decision-theorists and forecasters have advocated the use of a linear combination of forecasts for decision-making purposes. However, there have been two separate themes. One has looked at providing linear weights which minimise the forecast error variance. The other has utilised the posterior probabilities derived from the conventional Bayesian model discrimination procedure. This paper has attempted to identify some practical circumstances in which one of these two approaches becomes the more appropriate.     

The Combination of Forecasts

Two separate sets of forecasts of airline passenger data have been combined to form a composite set of forecasts. The main conclusion is that the composite set of forecasts can yield lower mean-square error than either of the original forecasts. Past errors of each of the original forecasts are used to determine the weights to attach to these two original forecasts in forming the combined forecasts, and different methods of deriving these weights are examined.     

Using investment portfolio return to combine forecasts: A multiobjective approach

This study investigates the usefulness and efficacy of a multiobjective decision method for financial trading guided by a set of seemingly diverse analysts' forecasts. The paper proposes a goal programming (GP) approach which combines various forecasts based on the performance of their previous investment returns. In our experiment, several series of financial analysts' forecasts are generated by different forecasting techniques. Investment returns on each series of forecasts are measured and then evaluated by three performance criteria, namely, mean, variance, and skewness. Subsequently, these distributional properties of the returns are used to construct a GP model. Results of the GP model provide a set of weights to compose an investment portfolio using various forecasts. To examine its practicality, the approach is tested on several major stock market indices. The performance of the proposed GP approach is compared with those of individual forecasting techniques and a number of forecast combination models suggested by previous studies. This comparison is conducted with respect to different levels of investor preference over return, variance, and skewness. Statistical significance of the results are accessed by bootstrap re-sampling. Empirical results indicate that, for all examined investor preference functions and market indices, the GP approach is significantly better than all other models tested in this study.     

Using Spreadsheet Simulation to Generate a Distribution of Forecasts for Electric Power Demand

Electric utilities commonly use econometric modelling for energy and power forecasting. In order to accommodate the uncertainties contained in the input variables, such forecasts are frequently made in three parts: a base forecast, assumed to be the most likely, and a high and a low forecast, often arbitrarily spaced on either side of the base forecast, giving a band of possible values for the forecast. Usually, a single point value forecast is then utilized rather than a distribution of possible forecast values. This paper describes how commercially available spreadsheet software was utilized to convert an econometric energy forecast into probabilistic demand and energy forecasts that incorporate weather variation, as well as other uncertain inputs.     

The quality of bank forecasts: The dollar-pound exchange rate, 1990–1993

A general framework for examining the quality of currency forecasts is described. This framework incorporates existing accuracy measures and modifies them to give components of accuracy that are appropriate for statistically derived and judgementally based forecasts. The framework is described and applied to one week ahead US$/UK£ forecasts from three major banks over a three year period between 1990 and 1993. The results suggest that, while overall forecast performance was poor, some aspects of the predictions could still be useful in a practical setting.     

Forecast frequency in rolling horizon hedging heuristics for capacity expansion

This paper describes a simulation study of the effect of forecast revisions and hedges against demand uncertainty in a rolling horizon heuristic for capacity expansion. The model is based on data collected in the utilities division of a large chemical manufacturing plant. A seasonal integrated moving average model for the demand is used to generate forecasts, while capacity additions are determined by applying a simple timing rule to various hedges around the forecast. The simulation results indicate that hedging forecasts by their prediction limits rather than a fixed buffer significantly reduces undercapacity at the expense of a small increase in capacity cost. The prediction limit hedge is more robust to delays in reforecasting.     

Experts' adjustment to model-based SKU-level forecasts: does the forecast horizon matter?

Experts (managers) may have domain-specific knowledge that is not included in a statistical model and that can improve short-run and long-run forecasts of SKU-level sales data. While one-step-ahead forecasts address the conditional mean of the variable, model-based forecasts for longer horizons have a tendency to convert to the unconditional mean of a time series variable. Analysing a large database concerning pharmaceutical sales forecasts for various products and adjusted by a range of experts, we examine whether the forecast horizon has an impact on what experts do and on how good they are once they adjust model-based forecasts. For this, we use regression-based methods and we obtain five innovative results. First, all horizons experience managerial intervention of forecasts. Second, the horizon that is most relevant to the managers shows greater overweighting of the expert adjustment. Third, for all horizons the expert adjusted forecasts have less accuracy than pure model-based forecasts, with distant horizons having the least deterioration. Fourth, when expert-adjusted forecasts are significantly better, they are best at those distant horizons. Fifth, when expert adjustment is down-weighted, expert forecast accuracy increases.     

A new method for estimating the forecast quality with consideration for the errors of calculating the unknown parameters

In this study, the problem of estimating the forecast accuracy of a model is considered. A widespread practice is to approximate the population expectation of the forecast accuracy by the sample expectation, which is equivalent to the uniform consideration for the deviations of the forecast from the exact value of a quantity for all time moments. If the vector of unknown parameters is estimated at each step only from the preceding observations, the significance of the deviations is not the same at all time moments. In this study, we propose a method that takes into account the forecast errors with different weights. The problem of constructing the most accurate estimate of the forecast quality, a parameter from which the condition for the optimal weights can be derived, is formalized. Monte-Carlo experiments are used to compare the accuracy of the methods for estimating the forecast quality in the cases when the observations are taken into account with the same weights, with optimum weights, and with the weights calculated using a numerical procedure.     

Efficiency of the independence assumption in the combination of forecasts

In seeking to minimise the composite forecast error variance of a linear combination of forecasts, contradictory suggestions have been reported concerning the practice of making the assumption of independence between forecast errors. This assumption can introduce robustness though its avoidance of sampling errors in the estimation of correlation coefficient(s), although it does render the composite forecast theoretically suboptimal. By means of theory and experimental simulation, this paper examines the circumstances whereby the independence assumption may produce more efficient composite forecasts. Its applicability is shown to depend both upon the underlying correlation structure and relative size of forecast errors as well as the observation base available for estimation.