Lancaster Centre for Forecasting hosted the 19^th IIF Workshop on Supply Chain Forecasting for Operations on 28^th and 29^th of June, jointly sponsored by the IIF and the software company SAS. The event attracted an international gathering of researchers and practitioners with presentations covering supply chain risk mitigation, temporal and cross-sectional aggregation, structural models, forecast integration, uncertainty and evaluation.

The presentation slides are available at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lums/scfo/proceedings/

There was a single stream and each speaker was allocated 35 minutes, including a generous time for comments from a discussant and questions from participants. The feedback on the workshop was very positive, with requests to organise such events more often.

BREXIT: Risk, Uncertainty and Ambiguity | An Interview with Prof. Roy Batchelor, 6 July 2016

Read on for an interview with Professor Roy Batchelor, Cass Business School, and an IIF Director:

Q. Professor Batchelor, your subject area is forecasting, with a focus on financial markets. There seems to have been a major failure to forecast the Brexit vote, and now financial markets in the UK are in turmoil. What is going on?

A. It is true that once again the opinion polls have let us down. More interestingly the betting markets – which are normally more reliable since people are putting their own money on the line – appear also to have let us down.

There has been an inquest into this, and it seems that the number of bets for Remain and Leave were roughly equal, but – consistent with their very different voter demographics – the size of the typical Remain bet was about five times the size of the typical Leave bet. So the bookies had to set odds of 4 to 1 against Brexit. But all this meant was that Leave supporters had less money to burn.2, 3

However, even if the vote had been predicted, we would still see a lot of negative sentiment about the future, and volatility in the stock market. The alternative to EU membership was never spelt out. We are suddenly in a world of unquantifiable uncertainty, rather than measureable risk.

To read the full interview, click here.

For the fourteenth year, the IIF, in collaboration and with financial support from SAS®, is proud to announce financial support for research on how to improve forecasting methods and business forecasting practice. The awards for the 2016-2017 year will be (2) $5,000 grants; in Business Applications and Methodology. The deadline for applications is September 30, 2016.

For more information and to apply: forecasters.org/activities/grants-and-research-awards/

Two exciting opportunities are currently available within Cardiff Business School to conduct cutting-edge implementable research in the area of circular economy. This 2-year project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK, EP/P008925, Resilient Remanufacturing Networks: Forecasting, Informatics and Holons) and it aims at advancing knowledge and making an impact in real world practices in the area of forecasting and inventory / production control in a remanufacturing context. The project benefits from the support of three industrial collaborators as well as the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). The successful candidates will be part of the Logistics and Operations Management (LOM) section of the School and benefit from exposure to an academic community that equally emphasises theoretical rigour and practical implementation. They will also benefit from collaborative work within the newly formed Logistics Research Centre, funded by Panalpina World Transport Ltd, and a currently ongoing knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) with a re-manufacturer in North Wales.

1. First RA: A strong operational research / management science background with specific emphasis on statistical forecasting (times series analysis or econometrics) or a strong industrial engineering / manufacturing management background in engineering informatics / data analytics.
2. Second RA: A strong operational research / management science background with specific expertise in systems modelling and/or a control engineering background – with knowledge of inventory management and production planning and control.

Please contact Professor Aris Syntetos with all inquiries.

Forecasting & Quantification Officer position in Washington, DC Metro Area

We’re Population Services International (PSI), the world’s leading non-profit social marketing organization. We work to make it easier for people in the developing world to lead healthier lives and plan the families they desire by marketing affordable products and services that range from mosquito nets to contraceptives to HIV testing.  The Global Health Supply Chain (GH Rx) project will be the primary vehicle through which USAID will 1) procure and provide health commodities, 2) provide technical assistance to improve partner countries’ management of the supply chain, and 3) collaborate with key international stakeholders to support global health initiatives. We are looking for a Forecasting & Quantification Officer who will  serve as the main point for systems strengthening issues related to HIV/AIDS, malaria, or population and reproductive health. The Forecasting and Quantification Officer will support the GH Rx project on systematic forecasting various health commodities.  Please visit:  www.psi.org/careers for more information.

The latest issue of the International Journal of Forecasting (October–December 2016) is now available! Here is just a sampling of the articles in this issue:

A comparison of AdaBoost algorithms for time series forecast combination Devon K. Barrow, Sven F. Crone

What predicts US recessions? Weiling Liu, Emanuel Moench

The forecastability quotient reconsidered Everette Shaw Gardner Jr., Yavuz Acar

Testing the historic tracking of climate models Michael Beenstock, Yaniv Reingewertz, Nathan Paldor

A simple model for now-casting volatility series Jörg Breitung, Christian M. Hafner

The 37th Annual International Symposium on Forecasting will be held in Cairns, Australia, from 25-28 June 2017.  The ISF organizing committee will offer workshops on Sunday, 25 June, before the main conference.

We are currently calling for workshop proposals on topics in the field of forecasting. Proposals can be for a half-day (3hours) or full day (6hours). To learn more about the ISF and workshop opportunities, visit robjhyndman.com/hyndsight/ or contact the IIF Business Director, forecasters@forecasters.org.

Demand Forecasting & Inventory Planning for Manufacturers & Distributors

APICS Puget Sound Professional Development Meeting October 6, 2016, 5:30 PM
Coast Bellevue Hotel, Bellevue, Washington USA

These two closely-related subjects contain the solutions to many expensive problems encountered by manufacturers and distributors—problems that executives, managers, and practitioners often believe have no solution. Forecasting and inventory planning are a science, not an art, and a little knowledge of this science can pay big dividends in terms of improved service and reduced inventory and expediting. Without this knowledge, executives and managers cannot hope to guide their people to achieve superior results. The good news is: one does not need to be a statistician or an engineer to understand the general principles of this science. This presentation provides an overview of the Demand Forecasting & Inventory Planning concepts and relationships, linking them to typical operational problems and solution alternatives. For questions, contact IIF Member, John Estep

Registration: https://apicsps.starchapter.com/meet-reg1.php?id=72

The Deutsche Bundesbank is looking to recruit several part-time (50%) Research Assistants. Our business areas include monetary policy, banking supervision, financial stability, cash management and payment systems. Initially on a two-year contract, this position will work in the Research Centre at our Central Office in Frankfurt am Main.

What the job entails
Research assistants are expected to support the academic work of their Research Centre colleagues in the areas empirical macroeconomics, empirical microeconomics or macroeconomic forecasting.

Working in an international team, you will contribute to the Deutsche Bundesbank’s decision-making process by providing in- sights into fundamental issues based on academic research. In your work, you will have access to excellent IT and data resources and interact with leading international academics.

What we have to offer
Alongside a unique set of tasks, we offer attractive employment conditions. We can also support you in the completion of your PhD in a variety of ways.

What we are looking for

• University degree, (accredited) Master’s degree or equivalent qualification with above-average results, or working towards a PhD in one of the following:
• Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Banking and Finance, Statistics and Econometrics or other quantitative specialist areas
• Sound knowledge of empirical methods
• Firm grounding in mathematical/statistical applications such as Matlab, R, Ox, Gauss and Stata
• Proficiency in advanced programming languages such as Fortran, S, CUDA or similar would be an advantage
• Good knowledge of data services such as Bloomberg, Datastream or Haver would be an advantage
• Sound command of written and spoken English

If you have any questions, please contact Malte Knüppel +49 69 9566 2324 or Guido Schultefrankenfeld +49 69 9566 8727 from the Research Centre or Kerstin Müller from the Human Resources Department +49 69 9566 8433, or visit our website www.bundesbank.de/Navigation/EN/Bundesbank/Career/career.

We look forward to receiving your online application and supporting documentation (cover letter, CV, study certificates or current academic transcript) by 5 December 2016, quoting the reference number 2016_0773_02_online.

We are pleased to announce the IIF sponsored workshops for 2017:

• ISEA 2017: Predictive Energy Analytics in the Big Data World || Cairns, Australia, June 22-23, 2017
• Forecasting Issues in Developing Economies || Washington, DC, April 27-28, 2017
• Tools and Analytical Techniques in Forecasting with Massive Data in Real Time || New York, USA, April 2017

For more information, visit our website.

AI and Future Jobs in 2030: Mudding Through Likely but Two Alternative Scenarios

William Halal, Jonathan Kolber, and Owen Davies

After decades of failed promises, artificial intelligence (AI) is now taking off. Yesterday’s doubters have been silenced, and the only current debate is about how deep and how fast intelligent machines will automate jobs, and whether the same technological forces will generate enough new work.

Several forecasts suggest AI is likely to eliminate almost half of present jobs by 2025, resulting in massive unemployment. (Rutkin, 2013) Ray Kurzweil, now at Google, extrapolates the growth of computer power to estimate that a US$1000 PC will match the human brain about 2020, and powerful AI systems will soon follow. (Frey, 2016) Ben Goertzel, leader of the OpenCog project said “I am confident that we will have human-level AI by 2025. Maybe sooner.” (Olson, 2013)

Advanced AI systems are being introduced even now. IBM’s Watson Division is partnering with hundreds of companies to automate entire fields of work. The partnership with Cleveland Clinic is developing a medical diagnosis system that promises accuracy surpassing all but the best doctors. Another partnership promises to automate legal work. Google’s Deep Mind is a deep learning system that needs no training as it learns by itself. It recently beat a human master at Go much faster than anticipated by AI researchers, and it taught itself to recognize speech.

This study addresses the looming issue of unemployment by forecasting the future distribution of jobs in categories across the occupational spectrum. We first summarize background data from the literature and present two alternative perspectives for consideration. Then results of a TechCast survey of experts concludes that a Muddling Through period of turmoil but relatively few net job losses is most likely. We also present two alternative scenarios.

Read the full article on AI and Future Jobs …

“In a recent discussion on LinkedIn, the question was raised: Is there a disconnect between the academic and the business worlds when it comes to forecasting?”

That question prompted a thoughtful response from Sujit Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Arkieva. Mr. Singh’s article and eight equally thoughtful responses from experienced forecasting professionals and researchers were published in Issue 42 of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting.

This special feature, “Closing the Gap Between Academic and Business Forecasting,” is available to download now, free of charge. Download your copy now, and if you’d like more thoughtful and useful insights into what works in forecasting, subscribe now to Foresight.

(Cross-posted from Hyndsight)

Courtesy of Tourism Tropical North Queensland

We know Australia is a long way to come for many forecasters, so we are making it easy for you to bring your families along to the International Symposium on Forecasting and have a vacation at the same time.

During the International Symposium on Forecasting, there will be a social program organized for family and friends.

Monday, 26 June: Official Partners Tour: Kuranda, Train & Skyrail. The tour will be led by Leanne Hyndman and Angela Athanasopoulos.
Tuesday, 27 June: ISF Gala Event
Wednesday, 28 June: Two Cairns City tours led by Leanne Hyndman and Angela Athanasopoulos, and both will be complimentary for ISF guests.
Thursday, 29 June: Post Symposium Great Barrier Reef tour

We also strongly encourage you to stay in Australia for at least another week to look around. June/July is winter in Australia, so the weather in Cairns and region will be beautiful, sunny and not too hot. Average temperatures range from 18-26°C (64-79°F) and there is low rainfall. Cairns is in northern Queensland, and is the centre for tourism to the Great Barrier Reef, and the amazing Daintree Rainforest. There are also lots of great organized tours in the region.

Courtesy of Tourism Tropical North Queensland

If you have time to travel further afield, I recommend Uluru and Central Australia. It is magnificent and fascinating, and you’ll never see a night sky like it anywhere else. Sydney is, of course, also a great place to visit. But I suggest you go no further south than Sydney in July, as it can be cold and wet in the south of the country.

Application Deadline – 28 February 2017

The International Institute of Forecasters will grant travel awards to enable individuals from all over the world to attend the International Symposium on Forecasting. These awards are intended to supplement other sources of funding and are primarily for students in the area of forecasting and secondarily for non-student forecasting researchers and practitioners.

For more information, visit the ISF 2017 website.

Forecasting is at the core of conducting forward looking monetary policy. Because of this, real-time monitoring of current and future economic conditions, assessing risk, and constructing alternative scenarios are common activities across all central banks. These institutions have therefore not only been important consumers of forecasting techniques developed in academia but act as a laboratory, leading to further research developments and providing a research agenda.

As such, the International Journal of Forecasting is excited to announce a Call for Papers for a conference on Central Bank Forecasting to be held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis on Thursday-Friday, November 9-10, 2017. Submissions should be sent as pdf files to research.event.services@stls.frb.org by April 21, 2017. We would prefer completed papers, but we will consider incomplete papers or abstracts. A list of potential topics is listed below.

While we will not be able to accommodate presentations by everyone, we are hoping to have strong enough interest that we can also have a poster session that coincides with the conference. If you are willing to participate in a poster session please let us know.

We will provide partial reimbursement for travel expenses and accommodation for conference participants (with accepted papers) not affiliated with a central bank or government agency. Conference information, including registration details and reimbursement, will be forthcoming.

Subsequent to the conference, the International Journal of Forecasting will publish a special issue on Central Bank Forecasting. Papers presented at this conference will be one source of submissions. However, we will also accept external submissions.

Guest Editors
Domenico Giannone, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (Domenico.Giannone@ny.frb.org)
George Kapetanios, King’s College London (George.Kapetanios@kcl.ac.uk)
Mike McCracken, Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis (Michael.W.McCracken@stls.frb.org)

Potential topics:
– The role of forecasts in central bank strategy and communication
– Conditional forecasts
– Scenario analysis
– Forecasting risk
– High dimensional data
– Bayesian methods
– Nowcasting/monitoring current economic conditions
– Market-based and surveys-based forecasts
– Forecast combination
– Forecasting with behavioral models (e.g. DSGE)
– Forecast evaluation
– Forecast communication
– Forecasting and instabilities
– Learning, uncertainty and monetary policy
– Forecasting recessions
– Forecasting exchange rates
– Forecasting the yield curve
– The finance-macro interface in economic forecasting
– Forecasting with nonlinear models
– Decision oriented forecasting
– Forecasting with panel data
– Forecasting commodity prices
– Forecasting turning points
– Forecasting the policy rate
– Market- and survey-based forecasting

Shari De Baets, Research Associate, Vlerick Business School

How did you become a forecaster?

I started working as a researcher on business research projects in 2010. One of the topics centered on decision-making and more specifically, the heuristics-and-biases tradition. While looking for literature on biases, I stumbled upon judgmental forecasting. What an interesting field! It combines my love for the decision-making literature with my fascination of modern computational power. It was around that time that I decided to pursue a PhD and consequently, I wrote my PhD proposal on the benefits of combining human judgment with statistical forecasting.

How did you get into the field?

The first forecasting paper I read was a draft of the Seifert and Hadida (2013) paper in Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, on combining judgment and statistical models in forecasting. Seeing this application with field data motivated me to write a proposal focussed on similarly researching judgmental forecasting in organisations. While writing this research proposal, we noticed that there was interest from the business world in this topic. Along with my advisor (Karlien Vanderheyden) and colleagues from the operations and data analytics department, I started a research centre on forecasting within Vlerick Business School. I currently manage the day-to-day business of this centre and am conducting research with its members. I hope to start a post-doc this year, focussed on continuing the work of my PhD topic: forecasting promotions by combining judgmental and formal methods. While my background is in psychology, this topic introduced to me the field of operations research and data analytics. The cross-disciplinary nature of the topic makes it so interesting, but also quite challenging. You need to be a jack-of-all-trades and know different methodologies and applications.

There is one experience that has shaped my work. As part of my PhD track, I spent one year studying at a university abroad. I was lucky enough to end up in Nigel Harvey’s lab at University College London. I learned how to code, on my own website and run experiments. The conversations with Nigel were always a pleasure and full of new knowledge. And the second term, I shared an office with Dilek Önkal. Working with these two big names and in the high-performing environment of UCL, got me really hooked on the field and the job itself. Now, I can’t imagine not being a researcher!

What areas of forecasting interest you?

Well, my background is in psychology and more specifically, in decision-making. I am a fan of both the heuristics and biases approach of Kahneman and Tversky, and the natural decision making approach of Klein. While the former identifies the faults in human decision-making, the latter stresses the potential of for instances, expert decision making. I think that both are perfectly unifiable in my topic! We see that biases occur, yet, people are still able to outperform statistical models in certain situations. I like that there is a balanced view of human judgment. Dilek Önkal’s research is a great example of a positive outlook on human forecaster potential.

How has the International Institute of Forecasters influenced you?

By providing me with a travel grant so I could attend my first International Symposium on Forecasting. In the first year of my doctorate, I did not have any funding available for attending conferences. The IIF awarded me with a travel grant and I have been coming back to ISF every year since then. It’s always a pleasure to see everyone again. The crowd of judgmental forecasters are such a welcoming group of people. I admit to being a bit star-struck that first time, seeing all those names that I knew from citing their papers! But they all immediately involved me in their conversation and I felt right at ease.

What do you do in your free time?

I am an avid reader: I always have my Kindle with me and read whenever and wherever I can. In Spring and in Summer, I like to work in my garden and grow my own veggies.

Early registration deadline is 14 April 2017!
Register now to save!

37^th International Symposium on Forecasting, June 25-28, 2017 in Cairns, Australia Integrating academic research into practical applications is one of the hallmarks of the annual International Symposium on Forecasting (ISF) being held this year, June 25-28 in Cairns, Australia. The ISF draws the world’s top forecasting professionals and researchers, presenters and participants, to learn about and discuss cutting-edge developments in forecasting.

The premiere international conference on forecasting, the ISF encompasses a broad range of forecasting sectors. This year’s event includes sessions on climate predictability, forecasting electricity demand, prediction of business cycles in real time, financial market volatility, forecast optimality, early warning signals, tourism forecasting, information technology trends, macroeconomic trends and the history of prediction science, among many others.

“The Symposium provides a platform for leading forecasting professionals to reveal their insights into the field. With a stimulating scientific program, plenty of networking opportunities, and a fun social program, ISF 2017 will be a memorable event. The City of Cairns warmly welcomes our participants and extends an invitation to explore the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rain Forest and the north east coast of Australia,” says Rob Hyndman, General Chair of ISF 2017, and Professor of Statistics at Monash University, Melbourne.

The Economic Outlook for the Euro Area in 2017 and 2018. The report provides updated forecasts and analyses of the macroeconomic situation for the Euro area.

Highlights:

Global economic activity appears to be expanding rapidly during spring 2017. Confidence among managers is either strong or has improved in all major regions, and world trade and industrial production have, after two years of weakness, picked up markedly during last winter.

For 2 ½ years, the euro area economy has now been constantly expanding at an annual rate of about 1.6%, slightly above potential. Employment has also been expanding steadily. Production and employment have been recently rising almost everywhere, including countries such as France and Italy where unemployment rates still do not appear to be on a downward trend.

Official investment data for 2015 and 2016 appear to be distorted: big multinational firms relocated parts of their assets (intellectual property products in particular) or their registered business offices from countries outside the euro area to Ireland. As a consequence, reported gross fixed capital formation in Ireland expanded by 33% in 2015 and by 45% in 2016. Without this effect, investment growth in the euro area is about one percentage point lower in 2015 and 2016.

Headline inflation hit 2% in February, but this was only the effect of higher world oil prices. The core rate is stubbornly at slightly below 1%, and wages rise annually by scarcely 1.5%. The revival of the economy will have to continue for considerably more time until inflation will come close to the ECB target zone.

As monetary conditions continue to support growth, financial policies will be slightly expansive, and a certain external stimulus should come from the apparent recovery of world trade.

Overall, we forecast euro area GDP to expand by 1.7% in both 2017 and 2018. However, policy uncertainty is substantial and could have a negative effect. In particular, elections in member states might give power to movements that aim at disintegrating Europe. Such a turn could rapidly undermine confidence, in particular in the financial strength of highly indebted member states.

Full Report

The European Forecasting Network is a research group of European institutions, founded in 2001. The participating institutions are:

– RSCAS, European University Institute (EUI), Italy
– Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII), France
– University of Birmingham, Department of Economics
– The Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Germany
– The Department of Economics, European University Institute (EUI), Italy
– Anàlisi Quantitativa Regional (AQR), Universidad de Barcelona
– Instituto Flores de Lemus (IFL), Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
– Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, UK

For further information, please see the EFN website or contact Professor Massimiliano Marcellino.

Federal Forecasters Conference ~ The Potential for Big Data in Forecasting

In the tradition of past meetings, FFC/2017 provided a forum where forecasters from federal agencies and other organizations can meet and discuss various aspects of forecasting.

The conference organizers have posted the presentations from the conference at https://cer.columbian.gwu.edu/federal-forecasters-consortium. Or to stay in touch with the FFC, check them out on twitter.

The IIF is happy to have supported the Federal Forecasters Conference which recently took place in Washington, DC. We hope all of the attendees liked their tote bags!

Recoupling Forecasting with Inventory Control and Supply Planning