All Change! The Implications of Non-stationarity for Empirical Modelling, Forecasting and Policy

23 November 2016

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History is littered with forecasts that went badly wrong, a fact sharply illustrated during the recent financial crash and recession. This Oxford Martin policy paper from Professor Sir David Hendry and Dr Felix Pretis examines a fundamental problem in economic forecasting: that many models used in empirical research and for guiding policy have been based on treating observed data, such as unemployment or income levels, as timeless, or ‘stationary’.