Forecasting the unemployment rate using the degree of agreement in consumer unemployment expectations

This study aims to refine unemployment forecasts by incorporating the degree of consensus in consumers' expectations. With this objective, we first model the unemployment rate in eight European countries using the step-wise algorithm proposed by Hyndman and Khandakar (J Stat Softw 27(3):1-22, 2...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Clavería González, Óscar
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/129623
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/129623
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Atur
Conducta dels consumidors
Enquestes de consum
Anàlisi de regressió
Indicadors econòmics
Unemployment
Consumer behavior
Consumer surveys
Regression analysis
Economic indicators
Descripción
Sumario:This study aims to refine unemployment forecasts by incorporating the degree of consensus in consumers' expectations. With this objective, we first model the unemployment rate in eight European countries using the step-wise algorithm proposed by Hyndman and Khandakar (J Stat Softw 27(3):1-22, 2008). The selected optimal autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models are then used to generate out-of-sample recursive forecasts of the unemployment rates, which are used as benchmark. Finally, we replicate the forecasting experiment including as predictors both an indicator of unemployment, based on the degree of agreement in consumer unemployment expectations, and a measure of disagreement based on the dispersion of expectations. In both cases, we obtain an improvement in forecast accuracy in most countries. These results reveal that the degree of agreement in consumers' expectations contains useful information to predict unemployment rates, especially for the detection of turning points.