[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/riibaf/v46y2018icp445-461.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic value of business cycle forecasts for potential investors – Evidence from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Döpke, Jörg
  • Müller, Karsten
  • Tegtmeier, Lars
Abstract
We examine the economic value of business cycle forecasts for potential investors of financial markets, as opposed to statistical measures of forecast accuracy. Taking Germany as an example, and based on annual data ranging from 1990 to 2016, covering 16 institutions and 18 different forecasts, we calculate performance measures of portfolios that actively react to business cycle forecasts and compare these values with the values of portfolios that are passively managed. We find that actively managed portfolios do not systematically outperform passively managed ones, while statistical measures suggest that forecasts are better than naive ones. Statistical and economic measures of forecast quality often do not point in the same direction, across forecasters. One main reason for the difference between the two views on forecast quality is that the economic value of a correct forecast changes with time. We check the robustness of our results by applying several trading rules referring to business cycle forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Döpke, Jörg & Müller, Karsten & Tegtmeier, Lars, 2018. "The economic value of business cycle forecasts for potential investors – Evidence from Germany," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 445-461.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:46:y:2018:i:c:p:445-461
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2018.06.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531917308140
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ribaf.2018.06.001?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. Blaskowitz, Oliver & Herwartz, Helmut, 2011. "On economic evaluation of directional forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1058-1065, October.
    2. Michael C. Jensen, 1968. "The Performance Of Mutual Funds In The Period 1945–1964," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(2), pages 389-416, May.
    3. Hartmann, Daniel & Kempa, Bernd & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2008. "Economic and financial crises and the predictability of U.S. stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 468-480, June.
    4. Marquering, Wessel & Verbeek, Marno, 2004. "The Economic Value of Predicting Stock Index Returns and Volatility," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 407-429, June.
    5. Costantini, Mauro & Crespo Cuaresma, Jesus & Hlouskova, Jaroslava, 2014. "Can Macroeconomists Get Rich Forecasting Exchange Rates?," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 176, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    6. Ullrich Heilemann & Herman O. Stekler, 2013. "Has The Accuracy of Macroeconomic Forecasts for Germany Improved?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(2), pages 235-253, May.
    7. Henriksson, Roy D & Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. II. Statistical Procedures for Evaluating Forecasting Skills," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 513-533, October.
    8. Victor DeMiguel & Lorenzo Garlappi & Raman Uppal, 2009. "Optimal Versus Naive Diversification: How Inefficient is the 1-N Portfolio Strategy?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1915-1953, May.
    9. 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).
    10. Robert J. Shiller, 1984. "Stock Prices and Social Dynamics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 457-510.
    11. Ledoit, Oliver & Wolf, Michael, 2008. "Robust performance hypothesis testing with the Sharpe ratio," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 850-859, December.
    12. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 2000. "A Recursive Modelling Approach to Predicting UK Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 159-191, January.
    13. Benjamin R. Auer, 2016. "Do Socially Responsible Investment Policies Add or Destroy European Stock Portfolio Value?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 381-397, May.
    14. Sinclair, Tara M. & Gamber, Edward N. & Stekler, Herman & Reid, Elizabeth, 2012. "Jointly evaluating the Federal Reserve’s forecasts of GDP growth and inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 309-314.
    15. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    16. Andrew Patton & Dimitris Politis & Halbert White, 2009. "Correction to “Automatic Block-Length Selection for the Dependent Bootstrap” by D. Politis and H. White," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 372-375.
    17. Sniezek, Janet A. & Van Swol, Lyn M., 2001. "Trust, Confidence, and Expertise in a Judge-Advisor System," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 288-307, March.
    18. Willy Aspinall, 2010. "A route to more tractable expert advice," Nature, Nature, vol. 463(7279), pages 294-295, January.
    19. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    20. Savor, Pavel & Wilson, Mungo, 2013. "How Much Do Investors Care About Macroeconomic Risk? Evidence from Scheduled Economic Announcements," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(2), pages 343-375, April.
    21. Nofsinger, John R., 2001. "The impact of public information on investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1339-1366, July.
    22. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    23. Önkal, Dilek & Sinan Gönül, M. & Goodwin, Paul & Thomson, Mary & Öz, Esra, 2017. "Evaluating expert advice in forecasting: Users’ reactions to presumed vs. experienced credibility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 280-297.
    24. Çakmaklı, Cem & van Dijk, Dick, 2016. "Getting the most out of macroeconomic information for predicting excess stock returns," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 650-668.
    25. Sebastian Lobe & Christian Walkshäusl, 2016. "Vice versus virtue investing around the world," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 303-344, March.
    26. Andrews, Donald W K & Monahan, J Christopher, 1992. "An Improved Heteroskedasticity and Autocorrelation Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 953-966, July.
    27. Arnold, Stephan & Auer, Benjamin R., 2015. "What do scientists know about inflation hedging?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 187-214.
    28. Graham Elliott & Ivana Komunjer & Allan Timmermann, 2008. "Biases in Macroeconomic Forecasts: Irrationality or Asymmetric Loss?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 122-157, March.
    29. Döhrn Roland & Schmidt Christoph M., 2011. "Information or Institution?: On the Determinants of Forecast Accuracy," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(1), pages 9-27, February.
    30. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2001. "Naive Diversification Strategies in Defined Contribution Saving Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 79-98, March.
    31. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    32. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    33. Pesaran, M Hashem & Timmermann, Allan, 1995. "Predictability of Stock Returns: Robustness and Economic Significance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1201-1228, September.
    34. Schnader, M H & Stekler, H O, 1990. "Evaluating Predictions of Change," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 99-107, January.
    35. Gibbons, Michael R & Ross, Stephen A & Shanken, Jay, 1989. "A Test of the Efficiency of a Given Portfolio," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(5), pages 1121-1152, September.
    36. Paul C. Tetlock, 2007. "Giving Content to Investor Sentiment: The Role of Media in the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1139-1168, June.
    37. Fama, Eugene F, 1970. "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 25(2), pages 383-417, May.
    38. Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. I. An Equilibrium Theory of Value for Market Forecasts," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 363-406, July.
    39. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Narayan, Seema & Thuraisamy, Kannan Sivananthan, 2014. "Can institutions and macroeconomic factors predict stock returns in emerging markets?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 77-95.
    40. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1996. "Multifactor Explanations of Asset Pricing Anomalies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 55-84, March.
    41. Jobson, J D & Korkie, Bob M, 1981. "Performance Hypothesis Testing with the Sharpe and Treynor Measures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(4), pages 889-908, September.
    42. Leitch, Gordon & Tanner, J Ernest, 1991. "Economic Forecast Evaluation: Profits versus the Conventional Error Measures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 580-590, June.
    43. Chan, Louis K C & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Lakonishok, Josef, 1996. "Momentum Strategies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1681-1713, December.
    44. Annika Hegemann & Angela Kunoth & Kristina Rupp & Caren Sureth-Sloane, 2017. "Hold or sell? How capital gains taxation affects holding decisions," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 571-603, July.
    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. Heinisch Katja & Behrens Christoph & Döpke Jörg & Foltas Alexander & Fritsche Ulrich & Köhler Tim & Müller Karsten & Puckelwald Johannes & Reichmayr Hannes, 2024. "The IWH Forecasting Dashboard: From Forecasts to Evaluation and Comparison," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 244(3), pages 277-288, June.

    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. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Eficiencia De Mercado, Administracion De Carteras De Fondos Y Behavioural Finance," Finance 0503028, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jul 2005.
    2. Marie Brière & Ariane Szafarz, 2021. "When it rains, it pours: Multifactor asset management in good and bad times," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 641-669, September.
    3. Wagner, Moritz & Margaritis, Dimitris, 2017. "All about fun(ds) in emerging markets? The case of equity mutual funds," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 62-78.
    4. Cederburg, Scott & O’Doherty, Michael S. & Wang, Feifei & Yan, Xuemin (Sterling), 2020. "On the performance of volatility-managed portfolios," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 95-117.
    5. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    6. Lu Zhang, 2017. "The Investment CAPM," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 23(4), pages 545-603, September.
    7. Flori, Andrea & Regoli, Daniele, 2021. "Revealing Pairs-trading opportunities with long short-term memory networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(2), pages 772-791.
    8. Hao Jiang & Marno Verbeek & Yu Wang, 2014. "Information Content When Mutual Funds Deviate from Benchmarks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(8), pages 2038-2053, August.
    9. Roberto Casarin & Andrea Piva & Loriana Pelizzon, 2008. "Italian Equity Funds: Efficiency and Performance Persistence," The IUP Journal of Financial Economics, IUP Publications, vol. 0(1), pages 7-28, March.
    10. Stefan Nagel, 2013. "Empirical Cross-Sectional Asset Pricing," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 167-199, November.
    11. Rob Bauer & Rogér Otten & Alireza Tourani Rad, 2006. "New Zealand mutual funds: measuring performance and persistence in performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 46(3), pages 347-363, September.
    12. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    13. Bauer, Rob & Otten, Roger & Rad, Alireza Tourani, 2006. "Ethical investing in Australia: Is there a financial penalty?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 33-48, January.
    14. Massimiliano Caporin & Grégory M. Jannin & Francesco Lisi & Bertrand B. Maillet, 2014. "A Survey On The Four Families Of Performance Measures," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 917-942, December.
    15. Liu, Jingzhen & Kemp, Alexander, 2019. "Forecasting the sign of U.S. oil and gas industry stock index excess returns employing macroeconomic variables," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 672-686.
    16. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    17. Isoé N. Schneider & Daniel Knebel Baggio & João S. Tusi da Silveira & Maria M. Baccin Brizolla, 2020. "Assessing Market Timing Performance of Brazilian Multi-Asset Pension Funds using the Battese and Coelli's Stochastic Frontier Model (1995)," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 50-60.
    18. Blaskowitz, Oliver J. & Herwartz, Helmut, 2009. "On economic evaluation of directional forecasts," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2009-052, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    19. Massimo Guidolin & Erwin Hansen & Martín Lozano-Banda, 2018. "Portfolio performance of linear SDF models: an out-of-sample assessment," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(8), pages 1425-1436, August.
    20. Olbryś Joanna, 2012. "Arch Effects in Multifactor Market-Timing Models of Polish Mutual Funds," Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 10(2), pages 60-80, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    E32; E37; G11; Macroeconomic forecasting; Forecast error evaluation; Portfolio choice; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:riibaf:v:46:y:2018:i:c:p:445-461. 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/locate/ribaf .

    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.