Forecasting plays an important role in every major functional area of business management. In the area of marketing however, forecasting is doubly important; not only does it have a central role in marketing itself, but ...

This paper empirically evaluates the uncertainty of forecasts. It does so using the 1001 series of the M-Competition. The study indicates that although, in model fitting the percentage of observations outside the confidence ...

Management theories and tools, like the fashion industry have their moment of glory and die. Very few survive and, in some cases, their passing leaves extensive corporate damage in their wake. Spyros Makridakis reviews the ...

Eighteen time series differing in their trend (three categories), randomness (three categories), and presentation on a graph (two categories) were given to 350 MBA students in a laboratory experiment. Each student was asked ...

In classical statistics, inferences about the popula- tion mean, confidence intervals, or testing of hypoth- eses are based on the sampling distribution of X. For the statistician or the mathematically sophisticated, there ...

Can recessions, or serious turning points in general, be predicted? Or do forecasters tend to assume that the future will continue as an extension of the near past. Theoretical evidence and practical observations tend to ...

This conclusion aims to summarize the major issues surrounding forecasting, as well as the extensive empirical evidence proving our inability to accurately predict the future. In addition, it discusses our resistance to ...

An altemative to using a single forecasting method is to average the forecasts obtained from several methods. In this paper we investigate empirically the impact of the number and choice of forecasting methods on the ...

Today there is growing criticism of the Input/Output (I/O) model as a conceptual tool for explaining and understanding how systems are functioning. These models have been particularly useful-mainly in engineering, where ...

This paper asserts that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT) despite holding true in all laboratory tests heretofore conducted, cannot, by itself, explain the hierarchical universe. By examination of the existing evidence, ...

Forecasting errors fall in two clearly different categories: (a) the residual errors from fitting a model to the available data and (b) the post-sample forecasting errors. The emphasis of statistical theory and forecasting ...

Forecasting has a long history. An understanding of such history coupled with the study of the empirical evidence can provide invaluable information for improving the accuracy and usefulness of predictions. Statistical ...

This paper describes the M3-Competition, the latest of the M-Competitions. It explains the reasons for conducting the competition and summarizes its results and conclusions. In addition, the paper compares such results / ...

ln the last few decades many methods have become available for forecasting. As always, when alternatives exist, choices need to be made so that an appropriate forecasting method can be selected and used for the ...

Chess is an intellectually demanding game played by millions of people around the world. Yet unlike tennis or other competitive sports there are few changes in the rankings of chess players. There have only been twelve ...

This paper describes an empirical investigation aimed at measuring the effect of different initial values and loss functions (both symmetric and asymmetric) on the post-sample forecasting accuracy. The 1001 series of the ...

This paper predicts the type of business firms and managers most likely to emerge in the 21st century. The forecasts are based on rational principles which avoid the common mistakes made in the past by long-term ...

Specialization inhibits or prohibits interdisciplinary communication among diverse areas. It contributes to segmentation, which becomes a serious problem when several of those areas should depend upon knowledge which exists ...

The purpose of the M2-Competition is to determine the post sample accuracy of various forecasting methods. It is an empirical study organized in such a way as to avoid the major criticism of the M-Competition that forecasters ...

This paper examines a major area of statistics: the application of time series analysis to forecasting, particularly as it applies to the areas of business and economics. This area is unusual in the social sciences in that ...