Properties of Optimal Forecasts∗

Evaluation of forecast optimality in economics and Þnance has almost exclusively been conducted under the assumption of mean squared error loss. Under this loss function optimal forecasts should be unbiased and forecast errors should be serially uncorrelated at the single period horizon with increasing variance as the forecast horizon grows. Using analytical results, we show in this paper that all the standard properties of optimal forecasts can be invalid under asymmetric loss and nonlinear data generating processes and thus may be very misleading as a benchmark for an optimal forecast. Our theoretical results suggest that many of the conclusions in the empirical literature concerning suboptimality of forecasts could be premature. We extend the properties that an optimal forecast should have to a more general setting than previously considered in the literature. We also present results on forecast error properties that may be tested when the forecaster’s loss function is unknown.