How to Compare Copula Forecasts?

Tobias Fissler & Yannick Hoga

Journal of Business & Economic Statistics2026https://doi.org/10.1080/07350015.2025.2602855preprint
AJG 4ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

Abstract

This paper lays out a principled approach to compare copula forecasts via strictly consistent scores. We first establish the negative result that, in general, copulas fail to be elicitable, implying that copula predictions cannot sensibly be compared on their own. A notable exception is on Fréchet classes, that is, when the marginal distribution structure is given and fixed, in which case we give suitable scores for the copula forecast comparison. As a remedy for the general non-elicitability of copulas, we establish novel multi-objective scores for copula forecast along with marginal forecasts. They give rise to two-step tests of equal or superior predictive ability which admit attribution of the forecast ranking to the accuracy of the copulas or the marginals. Simulations show that our two-step tests work well in terms of size and power. We illustrate our new methodology via an empirical example using copula forecasts for international stock market indices.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/07350015.2025.2602855

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@article{tobias2026,
  title        = {{How to Compare Copula Forecasts?}},
  author       = {Tobias Fissler & Yannick Hoga},
  journal      = {Journal of Business & Economic Statistics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/07350015.2025.2602855},
}

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0.50

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F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

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