Prediction Using Several Macroeconomic Models
研究了动态因子、动态随机一般均衡和向量自回归三类宏观经济模型的预测改进方法，发现使用完全贝叶斯预测分布和等权模型池可显著提升预测概率密度。
Prediction of macroeconomic aggregates is one of the primary functions of macroeconometric models, including dynamic factor models, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, and vector autoregressions. This study establishes methods that improve the predictions of these models, using a representative model from each class and a canonical 7-variable postwar US data set. It focuses on prediction over the period 1966 through 2011. It measures the quality of prediction by the probability densities assigned to the actual values of these variables, one quarter ahead, by the predictive distributions of the models in real time. Two steps lead to substantial improvement. The …rst is to use full Bayesian predictive distributions rather than substitute a “plug-in ” posterior mode for parameters. Across models and quarters, this leads to a mean improvement in probability of 50.4%. The second is to use an equally-weighted pool of predictive densities from the three models, which leads to a mean improvement in probability of 41.9% over the full Bayesian predictive distributions of the individual models. This improvement is much better than that a¤orded by Bayesian model averaging. The study uses several analytical tools, including pooling, analysis of predictive variance, and probability integral transform tests, to understand and interpret the improvements.