Combining Forecasts from Nested Models

By Todd E. Clark and Michael W. McCracken
First version: March 2006
 This version September 2008

RWP 06-02
Research Division
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City


Abstract

    

Motivated by the common finding that linear autoregressive models often forecast better than models that incorporate additional information, this paper presents analytical, Monte Carlo, and empirical evidence on the effectiveness of combining forecasts from nested models. In our analytics, the unrestricted model is true, but a subset of the coefficients are treated as being local-to-zero. This approach captures the practical reality that the predictive content of variables of interest is often low. We derive MSE-minimizing weights for combining the restricted and unrestricted forecasts. Monte Carlo and empirical analyses verify the practical effectiveness of our combination approach.

Keywords: Forecast combination, predictability, forecast evaluation

JEL classification: C53, C52


Back to top       RWP home