Regression Shrinkage Methods and Autoregressive Time Series Prediction

The pros and cons of applying regression shrinkage prediction arguments and methods to autoregressive time series forecasting are discussed. Simulation evidence of the performance of a Stein regression prediction formula suggests that the overall dominance of the shrunken predictor over least squares in regression no longer holds in time series samples of a reasonable length. Rather, shrinkage appears the better of the two, with respect to prediction mean squared error, only for weaker relationships and seems to be inferior to the least squares predictor when the autoregressive relationship is strong.