We study a matched sample of individual stock market forecasts consisting of both qualitative and quantitative forecasts. This allows us to test for the quality of forecast quantification methods by comparing quantified qualitative forecasts with actual quantitative forecasts. Focusing mainly on the widely used quantification framework advocated by Carlson and Parkin (1975), the so-called “prob...

We investigate the relationship between low-level incidents of political violence and communication patterns seven months after the 2012 Ivorian Civil War using network traffic from all of Orange Telecom’s Côte d’Ivoire cell towers and 500,000 randomly sampled cell phone subscribers. We first show that in the days preceding small violent incidents, mobile phone call volumes increase by 10% and ...

This paper compares three reduced-form models of heterogeneity in survey inflation expectations. On the one hand, we specify two models of forecasting inflation based on limited information flows of the type developed in Mankiw and Reis [2002. Sticky information versus sticky prices: a proposal to replace the new Keynesian Phillips curve. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4), 1295–1328]. We pr...

We address the problem of prediction in the classical spatial autoregressive LAG model for areal data. In contrast with the spatial econometrics literature, the geostatistical literature has devoted much attention to prediction using the Best Linear Unbiased Prediction approach. From the methodological point of view, we explore the limits of the extension of BLUP formulas in the context of the ...

Most studies of the predictability of stock and bond returns rely on in-sample tests. In this paper, we test the ability of ten financial variables that have appeared in the extant literature to predict S&P 500 and CRSP equal-weighted stock returns out-of-sample over horizons of 1-10 years. We also test the ability of two financial variables, the term and default spreads, to predict long-term c...

In this paper, we undertake an extensive analysis of in-sample and out-of-sample tests of stock return predictability in an effort to better understand the nature of the empirical evidence on return predictability. We show that a number of financial variables appearing in the literature display both insample and out-of-sample predictive ability with respect to stock returns in annual data cover...

The concept of common knowledge concerning higher orders of knowledge has seen exciting new developments in the fields of philosophy, game theory, statistics, economics and cognitive science in the recent decades. Even though information lies at the heart of accounting and capital markets research, these new developments have remained at the periphery of these fields. Common knowledge thinking ...

This paper presents a Heterogeneous Agent Model of a financial market with chartist and fundamentalist traders that exhibit bounded rationality and short-term thinking to explain the effect of under and overreaction to news. The existence of the Market Maker’s finite price adjustment speed and the presence of risk aversion lead to the fact that prices do not adjust instantaneously to new inform...

In an e cient securities market, prices correctly re ect news about future payo s. This paper argues that there are two aspects to correctness: (i) correct updating of beliefs from news, (ii) correct prior beliefs. Traditionally, empirical research has implicitly insisted on both. Lucas' rational expectations equilibrium theory also assumes both, explicitly. Nevertheless, rationality requires o...