622 research outputs found
Combining forecasts : forty years later
No full textThis article is dedicated to the memory of Clive Granger, a founding editor of this journal. Its title echoes the title of his invited review article in a special issue of the Journal of Forecasting in 1989. That issue marked the twentieth anniversary of the publication of his article with John Bates, which is widely regarded as the seminal article in the field of forecast combination. This article returns to two of the topics in ‘Combining forecasts – twenty years later’ that are of much current interest, namely the impact of forecasters’ different information sets on the original point forecast combination result, and properties of different methods of combining density forecasts. A parallel result to his inefficiency-of-mean-forecasts result for point forecasts is seen to apply to density forecasts, where logarithmic combination is shown to have some advantage over linear combination
Chi-squared tests of interval and density forecasts, and the Bank of England's fan charts
No full textThis paper reviews recently proposed likelihood ratio tests of goodness-of-fit and independence of interval forecasts. It recasts them in the framework of Pearson chi-squared statistics, and extends them to density forecasts. Two further recent developments are also incorporated, namely a more informative decomposition of the goodness-of-fit statistic, and the calculation of exact P-values. Examples considered are the US Survey of Professional Forecasters density forecasts of inflation and the Bank of England fan charts. This first evaluation of the Bank forecasts finds that the fan charts fan out too quickly, and the excessive concern with the upside risks was not justified.
Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars
No full textHal Wallis might not be as well known as David O. Selznick or Samuel Goldwyn, but the films he produced—Casablanca, Jezebel, Now Voyager, The Life of Emile Zola, Becket, True Grit, and many other classics (as well as scores of Elvis movies)—have certainly endured. As producer of numerous films, Wallis made an indelible mark on the course of America’s film industry, but his contributions are often overlooked and no full-length study has yet assessed his incredible career.
A former office boy and salesman, Wallis first engaged with the business of film as the manager of a Los Angeles movie theater in 1922. He attracted the notice of the Warner brothers, who hired him as a publicity assistant. Within three months he was director of the department, and appointments to studio manager and production executive quickly followed. Wallis went on to oversee dozens of productions and formed his own production company in 1944.
Bernard F. Dick draws on numerous sources such as Wallis’s personal production files and exclusive interviews with many of his contemporaries to finally tell the full story of his illustrious career. Dick combines his knowledge of behind-the-scenes Hollywood with fascinating anecdotes to create a portrait of one of Hollywood’s early power players.
Bernard F. Dick, professor of communications and English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, is the author of numerous books on film history, including Engulfed: the Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood.
This readable and well-documented book is enhanced by interviews with Wallis\u27s widow and with numerous individuals who worked with Wallis in Hollywood. . . . Recommended —Choice
Includes enough good gossip to keep movie addicts reading. —Hollywood Reporter
Heston remarked, \u27Hal was very good. Surely one of the two or three best of them all.\u27 Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars offers plenty of reasons to take that assessment seriously, and it gives a great filmmaker his due. —Hollywood Reporter
For someone whose name appears in the credits of hundreds of movies, Hal Wallis doesn\u27t get a lot of credit. Bernard F. Dick has tried to rectify that with the first biography of the great Hollywood producer. —Philadelphia Inquirer
A masterful job of charting Wallis\u27s career and examining his roles as production executive and independent producer. This is an engaging and illuminating narrative. —Film Quarterly
It is one thing to understand the complex operation of the film industry, particularly in the wake of the studios having been absorbed into conglomerates. It is quite another to tell the story of the producers involved in this industry with insight and wit, in a way that appeals to the general reader as well as to film scholars. Bernard Dick has accomplished this feat once again in his book on Hal Wallis. —Gene Phillips, Loyola Universityhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_film_and_media_studies/1021/thumbnail.jp
The properties of some goodness-of-fit tests
No full textThe properties of Pearson’s goodness-of-fit test, as used in density forecast evaluation, income distribution analysis and elsewhere, are analysed. The components-of-chi-squared or “Pearson analog” tests of Anderson (1994) are shown to be less generally applicable than was originally claimed. For the case of equiprobable classes, where the general components tests remain valid, a Monte Carlo study shows that tests directed towards skewness and kurtosis may have low power, due to differences between the class boundaries and the intersection points of the distributions being compared. The power of individual component tests can be increased by the use of nonequiprobable classes
Density Forecasting: A Survey
No full textA density forecast of the realization of a random variable at some future time is an estimate of the probability distribution of the possible future values of that variable. This article presents a selective survey of applications of density forecasting in macroeconomics and finance, and discusses some issues concerning the production, presentation and evaluation of density forecasts.
THE PROPERTIES OF SOME GOODNESS-OF-FIT TESTS
No full textThe properties of Pearson’s goodness-of-fit test, as used in density forecast evaluation, income distribution analysis and elsewhere, are analysed. The components-of-chi-squared or “Pearson analog” tests of Anderson (1994) are shown to be less generally applicable than was originally claimed. For the case of equiprobable classes, where the general components tests remain valid, a Monte Carlo study shows that tests directed towards skewness and kurtosis may have low power, due to differences between the class boundaries and the intersection points of the distributions being compared. The power of individual component tests can be increased by the use of nonequiprobable classes.Pearson’s Goodness-of-fit test ; Component tests ; Distributional assumptions ; Monte Carlo ; Normality ; Nonequiprobable partitions
Uncertainty and disagreement in economic prediction : the Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters
No full textThis article introduces a new source of survey data, namely the Bank of England Survey of External Forecasters. The survey collects point and density forecasts of inflation and GDP growth, and hence offers the opportunity of constructing direct measures of uncertainty. We present a simple statistical framework in which to define and interrelate measures of uncertainty and disagreement. The resulting measures are compared with other direct measures of uncertainty, nationally and internationally. A significant, sustained reduction in inflation uncertainty followed the 1997 granting of operational independence to the Bank of England to pursue a monetary policy of inflation targeting.Forecast surveys ; point forecasts ; density forecasts ; uncertainty ; disagreement
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