
Pablo PincheiraAdolfo Ibañez University · school of business
Pablo Pincheira
Economics PhD UW-Madison
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Publications (98)
In this paper, we show that traditional comparisons of mean squared prediction error (MSPE) between two competing forecasts may be highly controversial. This is so because when some specific conditions of efficiency are not met, the forecast displaying the lowest MSPE will also display the lowest correlation with the target variable. Given that vio...
In this paper, we propose a correlation‐based test for the evaluation of two competing forecasts. Under the null hypothesis of equal correlations with the target variable, we derive the asymptotic distribution of our test using the Delta method. This null hypothesis is not necessarily equivalent to the null of equal Mean Squared Prediction Errors (...
It is well-known that the weighted averages of two competing forecasts may reduce mean squared prediction errors (MSPE) and may also introduce certain inefficiencies. In this paper, we take an in-depth view of one particular type of inefficiency stemming from simple combination schemes: Mincer and Zarnowitz inefficiency or auto-inefficiency for sho...
In this paper, we show that survey‐based expectations of the Chilean exchange rate have the ability to predict the returns of the six primary non‐ferrous metals: aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin, and zinc. Predictability is also found for returns of the London Metal Exchange Index. Previous studies have shown that the Chilean exchange rate has t...
In this paper we introduce a “power booster factor” for out-of-sample tests of predictability. The relevant econometric environment is one in which the econometrician wants to compare the population Mean Squared Prediction Errors (MSPE) of two models: one big nesting model, and another smaller nested model. Although our factor can be used to improv...
In this paper, we propose a correlation-based test for the evaluation of two competing forecasts. Under the null hypothesis of equal correlations with the target variable, we derive the asymptotic distribution of our test using the Delta method. This null hypothesis is not necessarily equivalent to the null of equal Mean Squared Prediction Errors (...
We show that a straightforward modification of a trading-based test for predictability displays interesting advantages over the Excess Profitability (EP) test proposed by Anatolyev and Gerco when testing the Driftless Random Walk Hypothesis. Our statistic is called the Straightforward Excess Profitability (SEP) test, and it avoids the calculation o...
We propose a useful way to predict building permits in the USA, exploiting rich data from web search queries. The relevance of our work relies on the fact that the time series on building permits is used as a leading indicator of economic activity in the construction sector. Nevertheless, new data on building permits are released with a lag of a fe...
In this paper we show that the Chilean exchange rate has the ability to predict the returns of oil and of three additional oil-related products: gasoline, propane and heating oil. We show this using both in- and out-of sample exercises at multiple horizons. Natural explanations for our findings rely on the well know “dollar effect” and on the prese...
In this paper we show that the exchange rates of some commodity exporter countries have the ability to predict the price of spot and future contracts of aluminum. This is shown with both in-sample and out-of-sample analyses. The theoretical underpinning of these results relies on the present-value model for exchange rate determination and on the ti...
In this paper, we present a new asymptotically normal test for out-of-sample evaluation in nested models. Our approach is a simple modification of a traditional encompassing test that is commonly known as Clark and West test (CW). The key point of our strategy is to introduce an independent random variable that prevents the traditional CW test from...
Recently, the Generalized Growth Model (GGM) has played a prominent role as an effective tool to predict the spread of pandemics exhibiting subexponential growth. A key feature of this model is a damping parameter p that is bounded to the [0,1] interval. By allowing this parameter to take negative values, we show that the GGM can also be useful to...
In this paper, we show that traditional comparisons of Mean Squared Prediction Error (MSPE) between two competing forecasts may be highly controversial. This is so because when some specific conditions of efficiency are not met, the forecast displaying the lowest MSPE will also display the lowest correlation with the target variable. Given that vio...
In this paper we present a new asymptotically normal test for out-of-sample evaluation in nested models. Our approach is a simple modification of a traditional encompassing test that is commonly known as Clark and West test (CW). The key point of our strategy is to introduce an independent random variable that prevents the traditional CW test from...
This draft is a summary of the paper entitled: Forecasting Fuel Prices with the Chilean Exchange Rate. In that paper we show that the Chilean exchange rate has the ability to predict the returns of oil prices and of three additional oil-related products: gasoline, propane and heating oil. The theoretical underpinnings of our empirical findings rely...
This is a summary of the paper entitled : "The Mean Squared Prediction Error Paradox". In that paper, we show that traditional comparisons of Mean Squared Prediction Error (MSPE) between two competing forecasts may be highly controversial. This is so because when some specific conditions of efficiency are not met, the forecast displaying the lowest...
In this paper we study international linkages when forecasting unemployment rates in a sample of 24 OECD economies. We propose a Global Unemployment Factor (GUF) and test its predictive ability considering in-sample and out-of-sample exercises. Our main results indicate that the predictive ability of the GUF is heterogeneous across countries. In-sa...
We examine the accuracy of survey-based expectations of the Chilean exchange rate relative to the US dollar. Our out-of-sample analysis reveals that survey-based forecasts outperform the driftless random walk in terms of mean squared prediction error at several forecasting horizons. A similar result is found when precision is measured in a directio...
In this paper we show that the exchange rates of some commodity exporter countries have the ability to predict the price of spot and future contracts of aluminum. This is shown with both in-sample and out-of-sample analyses. The theoretical underpinning of these results relies on the present-value model for exchange rate determination and on the ti...
In this paper we show that the Chilean exchange rate has the ability to predict the returns of the London Metal Exchange Index and of the six primary non-ferrous metals that are part of the index: aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc. The economic relationship hinges on the present-value theory for exchange rates, a floating exchange rate r...
We show that traditional measures of curvature and symmetry of the “smiles” improve volatility predictions in forex markets. We consider post crisis data at a daily basis for seven currencies vis a vis the American dollar: The British pound, the Euro, the Australian dollar, the Japanese yen, the Brazilian real and the Mexican and Chilean peso. Whil...
We explore the ability of core inflation to predict headline CPI annual inflation for a sample of eight developing economies in Latin America over the period January 1995–May 2017. Our in-sample and out-of-sample results are roughly consistent in providing robust evidence of predictability in four of the countries in our sample. Mixed evidence is f...
We examine the accuracy of survey-based expectations of the Chilean exchange rate relative to the US dollar. Our out-of-sample analysis reveals that survey-based forecasts outperform the Driftless Random Walk (DRW) in terms of Mean Squared Prediction Error at several forecasting horizons. This result holds true even when comparing the survey to a m...
We explore the impact of exchange rate interventions on inflation expectations and exchange rates in Chile. We consider two episodes of central bank interventions during the sample period 2007-2012. Our analysis indicate that interventions did have an impact on daily exchange rate returns. In terms of inflation expectations, we find that the interv...
RESUMEN
Objetivos
El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar la evolución de la asequibilidad de la cerveza y de las gaseosas para quince países de América Latina.
Métodos
Los datos corresponden a estadísticas oficiales de índices de precios de cerveza y gaseosas/refrescos, índice de precios al consumidor e índice de salarios nominales en frecuenci...
In this paper we show that the Chilean exchange rate has the ability to predict the returns of the London Metal Exchange Index and of the six primary non-ferrous metals that are part of the index: aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc. The economic relationship hinges on the present-value theory for exchange rates, a floating exchange rate r...
In this paper we show that expectations about the future evolution of the Chilean exchange rate have the ability to predict the returns of the six primary non-ferrous metals: aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, tin and zinc. Predictability is also found for returns of the London Metal Exchange Index. Previous studies have shown that the Chilean exchang...
We examine the accuracy of survey-based expectations of the Chilean exchange rate relative to the US dollar. Our out-of-sample analysis reveals that survey-based forecasts outperform the Driftless Random Walk in terms of Mean Squared Prediction Error at several forecasting horizons. This result holds true even when comparing the survey to a more co...
We propose a useful way to predict building permits in the US, exploiting rich real-time data from web search queries. The time series on building permits is usually considered as a leading indicator of economic activity in the construction sector. Nevertheless, new data on building permits are released with a lag close to two months. Therefore, an...
In this paper we build forecasts for Chilean year-on-year inflation using both multivariate and univariate time series models augmented with different measures of international inflation. We consider two versions of international inflation factors. The first version is built using year-on-year inflation of 18 Latin American countries (excluding Chi...
In this paper we analyse the utility of international measures of inflation in predicting local ones. To that end, we consider a set of 31 OECD economies for which monthly inflation data are available. Three main conclusions emerge. First, there is an important share of countries for which relatively robust evidence of predictability is found for b...
We consider tests of equal population forecasting ability when mean squared prediction error is the metric for forecasting ability, the two competing models are nested, and the iterated method is used to obtain multistep forecasts. We use Monte Carlo simulations to explore the size and power of the MSPE-adjusted test of Clark and West (2006, 2007)...
En este trabajo se explora la existencia, robustez y magnitud del eventual aporte que puedan tener diversas medidas de actividad en la tarea de predecir inflacion en Chile, sobre la base de algunas versiones retrospectivas (backward-looking) de curvas de Phillips estimadas tanto con datos revisados como con datos en tiempo real. Los principales res...
We explore the ability of traditional core inflation –consumer prices excluding food and energy– to predict headline CPI annual inflation. We analyze a sample of OECD and non-OECD economies using monthly data from January 1994 to March 2015. Our results indicate that sizable predictability emerges for a small subset of countries. For the rest of ou...
The use of different time-series models to generate forecasts is fairly usual in the fields of macroeconomics and financial economics. When the target variable is stationary, the use of processes with unit roots may seem counterintuitive. Nevertheless, in this paper we demonstrate that forecasting a stationary variable with forecasts based on drift...
En este trabajo se explora la existencia, robustez y magnitud del eventual aporte que puedan tener diversas medidas de actividad en la tarea de predecir inflación en Chile, sobre la base de algunas versiones retrospectivas (backward-looking) de curvas de Phillips estimadas tanto con datos revisados como con datos en tiempo real. Los principales res...
We analyse the forecasting performance of several strategies when estimating the near-unity AR(1) model. We focus on the Andrews’ (1993) exact median-unbiased estimator (BC), the OLS estimator and the driftless random walk (RW). We also explore two pairwise combinations between these strategies. We do this to investigate whether BC helps in reducin...
This study uses some backward-looking versions of Phillips curves, estimated from both revised and real-time data, to explore the existence, robustness and size of the contribution that a variety of activity measures may make to the task of predicting inflation in Chile. The main results confirm the findings of the recent international literature:...
We evaluate the ability of several univariate models to predict inflation in the US and in a number of inflation targeting countries at different forecasting horizons. We focus on forecasts coming from a family of ten seasonal models that we call the Driftless Extended Seasonal ARIMA (DESARIMA) family. Using out-of-sample Root Mean Squared Predicti...
We analyse the forecasting performance of several strategies when estimating the near-unity AR(1) model. We focus on the Andrews’ (1993) exact median-unbiased estimator (BC), the OLS estimator and the driftless random walk (RW). We also explore two pairwise combinations between these strategies. We do this to investigate whether BC helps in reducin...
In this paper we analyze the contribution of international measures of inflation to predict local ones. To that end, we consider the set of current thirty one OECD economies for which inflation data is available at a monthly frequency. By considering this set of countries, a span of time including the post-crisis period and measures of both core an...
We evaluate the ability of the monthly index of entrepreneurial confidence (IMCE) to predict the twelvemonth variation of total and sectoral employment. By focusing solely on the predictive relationship between employment and IMCE indicators -excluding from the analysis the autoregressive terms of the respective employment variables-, we find stron...
In this paper we evaluate exchange rate predictability using a framework developed by Giacomini and White (2006). This new framework tests for conditional predictive ability rather than unconditional predictive ability, which has been the standard approach. Using several shrinkage based forecasting methods, including new methods proposed here, we e...
We show that a straightforward modification of a trading based test for predictability displays interesting advantages over the Excess Profitability (EP) test (proposed by Anatolyev and Gerco) when testing the Martingale Difference Hypothesis. Our statistic is called Straightforward Excess Profitability (SEP) and avoids the calculation of a term th...
In this paper we explore the role that exchange rate interventions may play in determining inflation expectations in Chile. To that end, we consider a set of nine deciles of inflation expectations coming from the survey of professional forecasters carried out by the Central Bank of Chile. We consider two episodes of preannounced central bank interv...
In this paper we build forecasts for Chilean year-on-year inflation using simple time-series models augmented with different measures of international inflation. Broadly speaking, we construct two families of international inflation factors. The first family is built using year-on-year inflation of 18 Latin American (LA) countries (excluding Chile)...
The use of different time-series models to generate forecasts is fairly usual in the forecasting literature in general, and in the inflation forecast literature in particular. When the predicted variable is stationary, the use of processes with unit roots may seem counterintuitive. Nevertheless, in this paper we demonstrate that forecasting a stati...
Normally inflation forecasts are made at different moments and based on varied data sets. One would expect a projection based on a larger data set to be more accurate than one based on a data set nested in the former. To test this hypothesis, this paper runs a joint test of superior predictive ability on available forecasts for Chilean inflation.
We evaluate the ability of several univariate models to predict inflation in a number of countries and at several forecasting horizons. We focus on forecasts coming from a family of ten seasonal models that we call the Driftless Extended Seasonal ARIMA (DESARIMA) family. Using out-of-sample Root Mean Squared Prediction Errors (RMSPE) we compare the...
It is well known that weighted averages of two competing forecasts may reduce Mean Squared Prediction Errors (MSPE) and may also introduce certain inefficiencies. In this paper we take an in-depth view of one particular type of inefficiency stemming from simple combination schemes. We identify testable conditions under which every linear convex com...
Inference about predictive ability is usually carried-out in the form of pairwise comparisons between two forecasting methods. Nevertheless, some interesting questions are concerned with families of models and not just with a couple of forecasting strategies. For instance: Are time-series models more accurate than economic models to predict inflati...
The Central Bank of Chile builds inflation forecasts for several time horizons and using various methodologies. In this paper, we analyze one of these series of short-term inflation forecasts, which we call Auxiliary Inflation Forecasts (AIF), comparing them to forecasts made by private analysts and to forecasts built from simple time-series models...
In this paper we provide evidence of exchange rate predictability for a selected emerging market economy (EME) at intermediate horizons, arguably, the most relevant for policy purposes. This is important because the existing literature on exchange rate predictability has mainly focused on developed economies, leaving relatively unexplored the quest...
In this paper we provide evidence of exchange rate predictability for a selected emerging market economy (EME) at intermediate horizons, arguably, the most relevant for policy purposes. This is important because the existing literature on exchange rate predictability has mainly focused on developed economies, leaving relatively unexplored the quest...
estudios/dtbc. Existe la posibilidad de solicitar una copia impresa con un costo de $500 si es dentro de Chile y US$12 si es para fuera de Chile. Las solicitudes se pueden hacer por fax: (56-2) 6702231 o a través de correo electrónico: bcch@bcentral.cl.studies/workingpaper. Printed versions can be ordered individually for US$12 per copy (for orders...
We evaluate inflation forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) of the Central Bank of Chile. Forecast errors for the period 2000-2008 show an excess of autocorrelation and a statistically significant bias at the end of the sample. We take advantage of the autocorrelation structure of the forecast errors to build new and more accu...
En este trabajo exploramos la existencia, robustez y magnitud del eventual aporte que puedan hacer diversas medidas de actividad a la tarea de predecir la inflación en Chile. Para ello nos basamos en algunas versiones de curvas de Phillips "backward looking", y utilizamos una base en tiempo real para obtener una apreciación de la capacidad predicti...
In this paper we evaluate the Central Bank of Chile annual GDP growth forecasts over the period 1991-2009 using a real-time database. We compare the Central Bank of Chile forecasts with those of the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), Consensus Forecasts, and simple time-series models. We compare all forecasts to first and quasi-final GDP gro...
In this article we explore the existence, robustness and size of the contribution that several activity measures make when predicting inflation in Chile. For that purpose, we use backward-looking Phillips curves and make use of a real-time database to get an evaluation of predictive ability consistent with the uncertainty faced by policy-makers whe...
estudios/dtbc. Existe la posibilidad de solicitar una copia impresa con un costo de $500 si es dentro de Chile y US$12 si es para fuera de Chile. Las solicitudes se pueden hacer por fax: (56-2) 6702231 o a través de correo electrónico: bcch@bcentral.cl.
A successful communication strategy requires a central bank to be credible. And this, in turn, means matching words with deeds.
The implementation of monetary policy based on setting the overnight interest rate is usually complemented with a strong set of communicational tools that, first, inform markets about the reasons underlying current decisio...
En este artículo evaluamos las proyecciones de inflación provenientes de la Encuesta de Expectativas Económicas del Banco Central de Chile. Nuestro análisis, para el período 2000-2008, detecta un exceso de autocorrelación en los errores de predicción y un sesgo estadísticamente significativo hacia el final de la muestra. Este sesgo y autocorrelació...
We evaluate inflation forecasts from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) of the Central Bank of Chile. Forecast errors for the period 2000-2008 show an excess of autocorrelation and a statistically significant bias at the end of the sample. We take advantage of the autocorrelation structure of the forecast errors to build new and more accu...
We show that some standard measures of inflation persistence in Chile have increased sharply in recent years. For the sample period between August 1998 and July 2008 we found that the half life of a shock to headline inflation is about 3 years. This is much higher that the half life of about 1 year computed in previous sample periods. When consider...
The purpose of this paper is to theoretically investigate the potential benefits that arise from a cooperative selling a government subsidized area-yield contract (i.e., the Group Risk Plan). The indeminities in area-yield contracts are triggered by a geographically determined yield (e.g., a county-wide yield average) instead of the more convention...
In this article we analyze the accuracy and stability of short-run inflation forecasts for Chile coming from Extended Seasonal Arima (ESARIMA) models. We compare ESARIMA forecasts to those coming from surveys and traditional time series benchmarks available in the literature. Our results show that ESARIMA based forecasts display lower out-of-sample...
In this paper we focus on combining out-of-sample test statistics of the Martingale Difference Hypothesis (MDH) to explore whether a new combined statistic may induce a test with higher asymptotic power. Asymptotic normality implies that more power can be achieved by finding the optimal weight in a combined t-ratio. Unfortunately, this optimal weig...
: This work presents a review of the main indicators used in the technical analysis of the peso-dollar parity. We explain the interpretations carried out by technical analysts of these indicators and perform forecasting analysis of the Relative Strength Index (RSI) to predict exchange rate returns at daily frequency. The predictive exercises are do...
Este artículo corresponde al comentario del libro "Structure and Structural Change in the Chilean Economy", editado por Patricio Aroca y Geoffrey Hewings, Palgrave-McMillan, 2006.
This paper evaluates the inflationary impact of an oil shock on several components of the consumer price index for several countries including Chile. All the countries in our sample display a significant response in headline inflation, energy inflation and non-core inflation. We also find a significant response in core inflation for all countries o...
Este trabajo evalúa el impacto del petróleo sobre diversas medidas de inflación. El análisis se realiza tanto para Chile como para otros nueve países industriales. Los resultados indican que un shock de precios del petróleo tiene un impacto al alza en inflación de energía, total y no subyacente para todos los países de la muestra. Con respecto a in...
Este trabajo presenta un resumen de las principales medidas utilizadas en el análisis técnico de la paridad peso-dólar. Se explican las interpretaciones y utilización que realizan los analistas técnicos de estas medidas. Asimismo, se realizan ejercicios que evalúan la capacidad del Índice de Fuerza Relativa (RSI) para predecir los retornos del tipo...
Este trabajo presenta un resumen de las principales medidas utilizadas en el análisis técnico de la paridad peso-dólar. Se explica la interpretación y el uso que los analistas técnicos dan a estas medidas. Asimismo, se realizan ejercicios que evalúan la capacidad del Índice de Fuerza Relativa (RSI) para predecir los retornos del tipo de cambio en f...
This work presents a review of the main indicators used in the technical analysis of the peso-dollar parity. We explain the usual interpretations of these indicators and we also explore the ability that the Relative Strength Index (RSI) may have to predict exchange rate returns at daily frequency. The predictive exercises are carried out using both...
In this paper we evaluate exchange rate predictability using a new framework developed by Giacomini and White (2004). In this new framework we test for conditional predictive ability rather than for unconditional predictive ability, which has been the usual approach thus far. Using several shrinkage based forecasting methods, including new methods...
In this paper we define a family of tests for the Martingale Difference Hypothesis (MDH) based upon a shrinkage principle. Tests within this family are such that rejection of the null implies that forecasts from the alternative model, adjusted by a shrinkage factor, will display lower Mean Square Prediction Error (MSPE) than forecasts from the null...
[eng] Transportation costs and monopoly location in presence of regional disparities. . This article aims at analysing the impact of the level of transportation costs on the location choice of a monopolist. We consider two asymmetric regions. The heterogeneity of space lies in both regional incomes and population sizes: the first region is endowed...
The purpose of this paper it to theoretically investigate the potential benefits that arise from a cooperative selling a government subsidized area-yield contract (i.e., the Group Risk Plan). The indemnities in area-yield contracts are triggered by a geographically determined yield (e.g, a country-wide yield average) instead of the more conventiona...
estudios/dtbc. Existe la posibilidad de solicitar una copia impresa con un costo de $500 si es dentro de Chile y US$12 si es para fuera de Chile. Las solicitudes se pueden hacer por fax: (56-2) 6702231 o a través de correo electrónico: bcch@bcentral.cl.studies/workingpaper. Printed versions can be ordered individually for US$12 per copy (for orders...
Este trabajo evalúa el impacto de una perturbación del petróleo sobre diversos componentes del índice de precios al consumidor para varios países, Chile incluido. Todos los países analizados muestran una respuesta significativa de la inflación total, de precios energéticos y no subyacente. También se encuentra evidencia de respuesta significativa d...
En este trabajo se muestra que la persistencia de la inflación efectiva en Chile, así como la de algunas medidas de inflación subyacente, se ha incrementado de manera importante en el último año. El análisis para el período comprendido entre Agosto del año 1998 y Julio del año 2008 muestra una vida media de los shocks inflacionarios de alrededor de...
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