Overfitting in Judgment-based Economic Forecasts : The Case of IMF Growth Projections /
I regress real GDP growth rates on the IMF's growth forecasts and find that IMF forecasts behave similarly to those generated by overfitted models, placing too much weight on observable predictors and underestimating the forces of mean reversion. I identify several such variables that explain f...
| 第一著者: | |
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| フォーマット: | 雑誌 |
| 言語: | English |
| 出版事項: |
Washington, D.C. :
International Monetary Fund,
2018.
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| シリーズ: | IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ;
No. 2018/260 |
| オンライン･アクセス: | Full text available on IMF |
| 要約: | I regress real GDP growth rates on the IMF's growth forecasts and find that IMF forecasts behave similarly to those generated by overfitted models, placing too much weight on observable predictors and underestimating the forces of mean reversion. I identify several such variables that explain forecasts well but are not predictors of actual growth. I show that, at long horizons, IMF forecasts are little better than a forecasting rule that uses no information other than the historical global sample average growth rate (i.e., a constant). Given the large noise component in forecasts, particularly at longer horizons, the paper calls into question the usefulness of judgment-based medium and long-run forecasts for policy analysis, including for debt sustainability assessments, and points to statistical methods to improve forecast accuracy by taking into account the risk of overfitting. |
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| 記述事項: | <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required |
| 物理的記述: | 1 online resource (43 pages) |
| フォーマット: | Mode of access: Internet |
| ISSN: | 1018-5941 |
| アクセス: | Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students |