Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
998508 International Journal of Forecasting 2007 16 Pages PDF
Abstract

This paper tackles the design of an optimal early warning system (EWS) for sovereign default from two distinct angles: the choice of the econometric methodology and the evaluation of the EWS itself. It compares K-means clustering of macrodata, a logit regression for macrodata, a logit regression for credit ratings, and the combined forecasts from all three methods. The optimal choice of forecast method is shown to depend on the desired trade-off between missed defaults and false alarms. Hence, it is crucial to account for the decision-maker's preferences which are characterized through a loss function and risk-aversion parameter. Recursive forecast combining generally yields a better balance of type I and type II errors than any of the individual forecasting methods, and outperforms the naïve predictions.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Business, Management and Accounting Business and International Management
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