[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jomega/v78y2018icp165-175.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal selection of expert forecasts with integer programming

Author

Listed:
  • Matsypura, Dmytro
  • Thompson, Ryan
  • Vasnev, Andrey L.
Abstract
Combinations of point forecasts from expert forecasters are known to frequently outperform individual forecasts. It is also well documented that combination by simple averaging very often has performance superior to that of more sophisticated combinations. This empirical fact is referred to as the ‘forecast combination puzzle’ in the literature. In this paper, we propose a combination method that exploits this puzzle. Rather than averaging over all forecasts, our method optimally selects forecasts for averaging. The problem of optimal selection is solved using integer programming, a solution approach that has witnessed astonishing advancements. We apply this new method to forecasts of real GDP growth and unemployment from the European Central Bank Survey of Professional Forecasters. The results show that it is optimal to select only a small number of the available forecasts and that averaging over these small subsets almost always provides performance that is superior to averaging over all forecasts. Importantly, this new method is consistently one of the best performers when evaluated against a wide range of alternative forecast combination methods.

Suggested Citation

  • Matsypura, Dmytro & Thompson, Ryan & Vasnev, Andrey L., 2018. "Optimal selection of expert forecasts with integer programming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 165-175.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:78:y:2018:i:c:p:165-175
    DOI: 10.1016/j.omega.2017.06.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305048317300130
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.omega.2017.06.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    2. Prokopyev, Oleg A. & Kong, Nan & Martinez-Torres, Dayna L., 2009. "The equitable dispersion problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(1), pages 59-67, August.
    3. Claeskens, Gerda & Magnus, Jan R. & Vasnev, Andrey L. & Wang, Wendun, 2016. "The forecast combination puzzle: A simple theoretical explanation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 754-762.
    4. Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Forecast Combinations," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 135-196, Elsevier.
    5. Capistrán, Carlos & Timmermann, Allan, 2009. "Forecast Combination With Entry and Exit of Experts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 428-440.
    6. Genre, Véronique & Kenny, Geoff & Meyler, Aidan & Timmermann, Allan, 2013. "Combining expert forecasts: Can anything beat the simple average?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 108-121.
    7. Yang, Yuhong, 2004. "Combining Forecasting Procedures: Some Theoretical Results," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 176-222, February.
    8. Dimitris Bertsimas & Angela King, 2016. "OR Forum—An Algorithmic Approach to Linear Regression," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 2-16, February.
    9. Conflitti, Cristina & De Mol, Christine & Giannone, Domenico, 2015. "Optimal combination of survey forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1096-1103.
    10. Yeung Lewis Chan & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1999. "A dynamic factor model framework for forecast combination," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 91-121.
    11. Diebold, Francis X. & Pauly, Peter, 1990. "The use of prior information in forecast combination," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 503-508, December.
    12. Aiolfi, Marco & Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Persistence in forecasting performance and conditional combination strategies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 31-53.
    13. Jeremy Smith & Kenneth F. Wallis, 2009. "A Simple Explanation of the Forecast Combination Puzzle," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(3), pages 331-355, June.
    14. Mark W. Watson & James H. Stock, 2004. "Combination forecasts of output growth in a seven-country data set," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 405-430.
    15. Dorit S. Hochbaum, 2013. "A Polynomial Time Algorithm for Rayleigh Ratio on Discrete Variables: Replacing Spectral Techniques for Expander Ratio, Normalized Cut, and Cheeger Constant," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 184-198, February.
    16. Sancetta, Alessio, 2010. "Recursive Forecast Combination For Dependent Heterogeneous Data," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 598-631, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nibbering, D. & Paap, R., 2019. "Panel Forecasting with Asymmetric Grouping," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI-2019-30, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    2. Chan, Felix & Pauwels, Laurent, 2019. "Equivalence of optimal forecast combinations under affine constraints," Working Papers BAWP-2019-02, University of Sydney Business School, Discipline of Business Analytics.
    3. Thompson, Ryan & Qian, Yilin & Vasnev, Andrey L., 2024. "Flexible global forecast combinations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    4. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & Jeon, Jooyoung, 2021. "Treating and Pruning: New approaches to forecasting model selection and combination using prediction intervals," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 547-568.
    5. Wei Qian & Craig A. Rolling & Gang Cheng & Yuhong Yang, 2019. "On the Forecast Combination Puzzle," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-26, September.
    6. Qian, Yilin & Thompson, Ryan & Vasnev, Andrey L, 2022. "Global combinations of expert forecasts," Working Papers BAWP-2022-02, University of Sydney Business School, Discipline of Business Analytics.
    7. Talagala, Thiyanga S. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2022. "FFORMPP: Feature-based forecast model performance prediction," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 920-943.
    8. Feuerriegel, Stefan & Gordon, Julius, 2019. "News-based forecasts of macroeconomic indicators: A semantic path model for interpretable predictions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 272(1), pages 162-175.
    9. Radchenko, Peter & Vasnev, Andrey L. & Wang, Wendun, 2023. "Too similar to combine? On negative weights in forecast combination," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 18-38.
    10. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Barrow, Devon & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2019. "Another look at forecast selection and combination: Evidence from forecast pooling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 226-235.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Xiaoqian & Hyndman, Rob J. & Li, Feng & Kang, Yanfei, 2023. "Forecast combinations: An over 50-year review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1518-1547.
    2. Diebold, Francis X. & Shin, Minchul, 2019. "Machine learning for regularized survey forecast combination: Partially-egalitarian LASSO and its derivatives," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1679-1691.
    3. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Barrow, Devon & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2019. "Another look at forecast selection and combination: Evidence from forecast pooling," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 226-235.
    4. Antoine Mandel & Amir Sani, 2016. "Learning Time-Varying Forecast Combinations," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 16036, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    5. Francis X. Diebold & Minchul Shin, 2017. "Beating the Simple Average: Egalitarian LASSO for Combining Economic Forecasts," PIER Working Paper Archive 17-017, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 20 Aug 2017.
    6. Yongchen Zhao, 2021. "The robustness of forecast combination in unstable environments: a Monte Carlo study of advanced algorithms," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 173-199, July.
    7. Timmermann, Allan, 2006. "Forecast Combinations," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 135-196, Elsevier.
    8. Antoine Mandel & Amir Sani, 2017. "A Machine Learning Approach to the Forecast Combination Puzzle," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01317974, HAL.
    9. Qian, Yilin & Thompson, Ryan & Vasnev, Andrey L, 2022. "Global combinations of expert forecasts," Working Papers BAWP-2022-02, University of Sydney Business School, Discipline of Business Analytics.
    10. Zhentao Shi & Liangjun Su & Tian Xie, 2020. "L2-Relaxation: With Applications to Forecast Combination and Portfolio Analysis," Papers 2010.09477, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    11. Thompson, Ryan & Qian, Yilin & Vasnev, Andrey L., 2024. "Flexible global forecast combinations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    12. Jiun-Hua Su, 2021. "No-Regret Forecasting with Egalitarian Committees," Papers 2109.13801, arXiv.org.
    13. Conflitti, Cristina & De Mol, Christine & Giannone, Domenico, 2015. "Optimal combination of survey forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1096-1103.
    14. Chan, Felix & Pauwels, Laurent L., 2018. "Some theoretical results on forecast combinations," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 64-74.
    15. Blanc, Sebastian M. & Setzer, Thomas, 2016. "When to choose the simple average in forecast combination," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 3951-3962.
    16. Li Liu & Yudong Wang, 2021. "Forecasting aggregate market volatility: The role of good and bad uncertainties," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(1), pages 40-61, January.
    17. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    18. Wei Qian & Craig A. Rolling & Gang Cheng & Yuhong Yang, 2019. "On the Forecast Combination Puzzle," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-26, September.
    19. Genre, Véronique & Kenny, Geoff & Meyler, Aidan & Timmermann, Allan, 2013. "Combining expert forecasts: Can anything beat the simple average?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 108-121.
    20. Hsiao, Cheng & Wan, Shui Ki, 2014. "Is there an optimal forecast combination?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P2), pages 294-309.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jomega:v:78:y:2018:i:c:p:165-175. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/375/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.