1,721,010 research outputs found
A summary of the conference on real-time data analysis.
Get PDFThe conference focused on five topics: data revisions, forecasting, policy analysis, financial research, and macroeconomic research. In "A Summary of the Conference on Real-Time Data Analysis," Tom Stark reviews the papers presented at the conferenceMacroeconomics
Realistic evaluation of real-time forecasts in the Survey of Professional Forecasters
Get PDFEconomic indicators
Forecasting with a real-time data set for macroeconomists
Get PDFThis paper discusses how forecasts are affected by the use of real-time data rather than latest-available data. The key issue is this: In the literature on developing forecasting models, new models are put together based on the results they yield using the data set available to the model’s developer. But those are not the data that were available to a forecaster in real time. How much difference does the vintage of the data make for such forecasts? The authors explore this issue with a variety of exercises designed to answer this question. In particular, they find that the use of real-time data matters for some forecasting issues but not for others. It matters for choosing lag length in a univariate context. Preliminary evidence suggests that the span—or number—of forecast observations used to evaluate models may also be critical: the authors find that standard measures of forecast accuracy can be vintage-sensitive when constructed on the short spans (five years of quarterly data) of data sometimes used by researchers for forecast evaluation. The differences between using real-time and latest-available data may depend on what is being used as the “actual” or realization, and we explore several alternatives that can be used. Perhaps of most importance, we show that measures of forecast error, such as root-mean-squared error and mean absolute error, can be deceptively lower when using latest-available data rather than real-time data. Thus, for purposes such as modeling expectations or evaluating forecast errors of survey data, the use of latest-available data is questionable; comparisons between the forecasts generated from new models and benchmark forecasts, generated in real time, should be based on real-time data.Forecasting
Bench Mark Revisions and the U.S. Personal Saving Rate
Get PDFInitially published estimates of the personal saving rate from 1965 Q3 to 1999 Q2, which averaged 5.3 percent, have been revised up 2.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, as we document. We show that much of the initial variations in personal saving rate across time was pure noise. Nominal disposable personal income has been revised upward an average of 8.3 percent: one dollar in twelve was originally missing. We use both conventional and real-time estimates of the personal saving rate to forecast real disposable income, gross domestic product, and personal consumption and show that using the personal saving rate in real-time would have almost invariably made forecasts worse. Thus while the personal saving rate may contain information about later consumption once we know the true saving rate, as Campbell (1987) and Ireland(1995) have shown, as a practical matter, noise in the U.S. personal saving rate makes it uninformative for forecasting purposesPermanent Income, Saving, Real-time data
Forecasting coin demand.
Get PDFShortages of coins in 1999 and 2000 motivated the authors to develop models for forecasting coin demand. A variety of models were developed, tested, and used in realtime forecasting. This paper describes the models that were developed and examines the forecast errors from the models both in quasi-ex-ante forecasting exercises and in realtime use. Tests for forecast efficiency are run on each model. Real-time forecasts are examined. The authors conclude with suggestions for further refinements of the models.Coinage
A real-time data set for macroeconomists: does data vintage matter for forecasting?
Get PDFThis paper describes a real-time data set for macroeconomists that can be used for a variety of purposes, including forecast evaluation. The data set consists of quarterly vintages, or snapshots, of the major macroeconomic data available at quarterly intervals in real time. The paper explains the construction of the data set, examines the properties of several of the variables in the data set across vintages, and provides an example showing how data revisions can affect forecasts.Forecasting
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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