A Kolmogorov-Smirnov Based Test for Comparing the Predictive Accuracy of Two Sets of Forecasts

Hossein Hassani and Emmanuel Sirimal Silva
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Emmanuel Sirimal Silva: Statistical Research Centre, The Business School, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, BH8 8EB, UK

Econometrics, 2015, vol. 3, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: This paper introduces a complement statistical test for distinguishing between the predictive accuracy of two sets of forecasts. We propose a non-parametric test founded upon the principles of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, referred to as the KS Predictive Accuracy (KSPA) test. The KSPA test is able to serve two distinct purposes. Initially, the test seeks to determine whether there exists a statistically significant difference between the distribution of forecast errors, and secondly it exploits the principles of stochastic dominance to determine whether the forecasts with the lower error also reports a stochastically smaller error than forecasts from a competing model, and thereby enables distinguishing between the predictive accuracy of forecasts. We perform a simulation study for the size and power of the proposed test and report the results for different noise distributions, sample sizes and forecasting horizons. The simulation results indicate that the KSPA test is correctly sized, and robust in the face of varying forecasting horizons and sample sizes along with significant accuracy gains reported especially in the case of small sample sizes. Real world applications are also considered to illustrate the applicability of the proposed KSPA test in practice.

Keywords: forecast accuracy; Kolmogorov-Smirnov; stochastic dominance; non-parametric; size and power; predictive accuracy; KSPA; Diebold-Mariano; DM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B23 C C00 C01 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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