Forecasts of product demand are essential for short- and long-term optimization of logistics and production. Thus, the most accurate prediction possible is desirable. In order to optimally train predictive models, the deviation of the forecast compared to the actual demand needs to be assessed by a proper metric. However, if a metric does not represent the actual prediction error, predictive models are insufficiently optimized and, consequently, will yield inaccurate predictions. The most common metrics such as MAPE or RMSE, however, are not suitable for the evaluation of forecasting errors, especially for lumpy and intermittent demand patterns, as they do not sufficiently account for, e.g., temporal shifts (prediction before or after actual demand) or cost-related aspects. Therefore, we propose a novel metric that, in addition to statistical considerations, also addresses business aspects. Additionally, we evaluate the metric based on simulated and real demand time series from the automotive aftermarket.

A novel social networks sentiment analysis model is proposed based on Twitter sentiment score (TSS) for real-time prediction of the future stock market price FTSE 100, as compared with conventional econometric models of investor sentiment based on closed-end fund discount (CEFD). The proposed TSS model features a new baseline correlation approach, which not only exhibits a decent prediction accuracy, but also reduces the computation burden and enables a fast decision making without the knowledge of historical data. Polynomial regression, classification modelling and lexicon-based sentiment analysis are performed using R. The obtained TSS predicts the future stock market trend in advance by 15 time samples (30 working hours) with an accuracy of 67.22% using the proposed baseline criterion without referring to historical TSS or market data. Specifically, TSS's prediction performance of an upward market is found far better than that of a downward market. Under the logistic regression and linear discriminant analysis, the accuracy of TSS in predicting the upward trend of the future market achieves 97.87%.

We propose a statistical framework to quantify location and co-location associations of economic activities using information-theoretic measures. We relate the resulting measures to existing measures of revealed comparative advantage, localization and specialization and show that they can all be seen as part of the same framework. Using a Bayesian approach, we provide measures of uncertainty of the estimated quantities. Furthermore, the information-theoretic approach can be readily extended to move beyond pairwise co-locations and instead capture multivariate associations. To illustrate the framework, we apply our measures to the co-location of occupations in US cities, showing the associations between different groups of occupations.

The lead-lag relationship plays a vital role in financial markets. It is the phenomenon where a certain price-series lags behind and partially replicates the movement of leading time-series. The present research proposes a new technique which helps better identify the lead-lag relationship empirically. Apart from better identifying the lead-lag path, the technique also gives a measure for adjudging closeness between financial time-series. Also, the proposed measure is closely related to correlation, and it uses Dynamic Programming technique for finding the optimal lead-lag path. Further, it retains most of the properties of a metric, so much so, it is termed as loose metric. Tests are performed on Synthetic Time Series (STS) with known lead-lag relationship and comparisons are done with other state-of-the-art models on the basis of significance and forecastability. The proposed technique gives the best results in both the tests. It finds paths which are all statistically significant, and its forecasts are closest to the target values. Then, we use the measure to study the topology evolution of the Foreign Exchange market, as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds. Here, we study the FX currency prices of 29 prominent countries of the world. It is observed that as the crises unfold, all the currencies become strongly interlinked to each other. Also, USA Dollar starts playing even more central role in the FX market. Finally, we mention several other application areas of the proposed technique for designing intelligent systems.

We provide a unified treatment of pathwise Large and Moderate deviations principles for a general class of multidimensional stochastic Volterra equations with singular kernels, not necessarily of convolution form. Our methodology is based on the weak convergence approach by Budhijara, Dupuis and Ellis. We show in particular how this framework encompasses most rough volatility models used in mathematical finance and generalises many recent results in the literature.

We analyze an approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting down the economy while staying within the capacity of the healthcare system. We base our analysis on a detailed heterogeneous epidemiological model, which takes into account different population groups and phases of the disease, including incubation, infection period, hospitalization, and treatment in the intensive care unit (ICU). We model the healthcare capacity as the total number of hospital and ICU beds for the whole country. We calibrate the model parameters to data reported in several recent research papers. For high- and low-risk population groups, we calculate the number of total and intensive care hospitalizations, and deaths as functions of time. The main conclusion is that countries, which enforce reasonable hygienic measures on time can avoid lockdowns throughout the pandemic provided that the number of spare ICU beds per million is above the threshold of about 100. In countries where the total number of ICU beds is below this threshold, a limited period quarantine to specific high-risk groups of the population suffices. Furthermore, in the case of an inadequate capacity of the healthcare system, we incorporate a feedback loop and demonstrate that quantitative impact of the lack of ICU units on the death curve. In the case of inadequate ICU beds, full- and partial-quarantine scenarios outcomes are almost identical, making it unnecessary to shut down the whole economy. We conclude that only a limited-time quarantine of the high-risk group might be necessary, while the rest of the economy can remain operational.

We propose a stochastic model for a limit order book with liquidity fluctuations. Our model shows how severe intermittencies in the liquidity can affect the order book dynamics. The law of large numbers (LLN), central limit theorem (CLT) and large deviations (LD) are proved for our model. Our results allow us to satisfactorily explain the volatility and local trends in the prices, relevant empirical characteristics that are observed in this type of markets. Furthermore, it shows us how these local trends and volatility are determined by the typical values of the bid-ask spread. In addition, we use our model to show how large deviations occur in the spread as a direct result of severe liquidity fluctuations.

Corporate failure resonates widely leaving practitioners searching for understanding of default risk. Managers seek to steer away from trouble, credit providers to avoid risky loans and investors to mitigate losses. Applying Topological Data Analysis tools this paper explores whether failing firms from the United States organise neatly along the five predictors of default proposed by the Z-score models. Firms are represented as a point cloud in a five dimensional space, one axis for each predictor. Visualising that cloud using Ball Mapper reveals failing firms are not often neighbours. As new modelling approaches vie to better predict firm failure, often using black boxes to deliver potentially over-fitting models, a timely reminder is sounded on the importance of evidencing the identification process. Value is added to the understanding of where in the parameter space failure occurs, and how firms might act to move away from financial distress. Further, lenders may find opportunity amongst subsets of firms that are traditionally considered to be in danger of bankruptcy but actually sit in characteristic spaces where failure has not occurred.

We relook at the classic equity fund selection and portfolio construction problems from a new perspective and propose an easy-to-implement framework to tackle the problem in practical investment. Rather than the conventional way by constructing a long only portfolio from a big universe of stocks or macro factors, we show how to produce a long-short portfolio from a smaller pool of stocks from mutual fund top holdings and generate impressive results. As these methods are based on statistical evidence, we need closely monitoring the model validity, and prepare repair strategies.

The magnitude of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has an enormous impact on the social life and the economic activities in almost every country in the world. Besides the biological and epidemiological factors, a multitude of social and economic criteria also govern the extent of the coronavirus disease spread in the population. Consequently, there is an active debate regarding the critical socio-economic determinants that contribute to the resulting pandemic. In this paper, we contribute towards the resolution of the debate by leveraging Bayesian model averaging techniques and country level data to investigate the potential of 35 determinants, describing a diverse set of socio-economic characteristics, in explaining the coronavirus pandemic outcome.

The issue of climate change has become increasingly salient in the past years, the transition towards a renewable energy system is a priority in the transition to a sustainable society. In this document we explore the definition of energy transition, how it is reached, what are the driven factors to achieve it, and why in the 21st century context we can refer to it as Green energy transition. To answer that firstly, we have conducted a literature review discovering definitions from different disciplines, secondly, gathering the key factors that are drivers for energy transition, finally, a preliminary analysis of the factors is conducted within the context of European Union data preliminary finding that household net income and governmental legal actions related to environment are potential candidates to predict energy transition within countries. We intend to spark new research directions in order to get a common social and scientific understanding of energy transition.