Narrow Results

This chapter offers an extension to the literature on energy prices by forecasting the return volatility of these prices using the GARCH-MIDAS approach. In addition to the realized volatility, it also evaluates the predictability of relevant macroeconomic information such as industrial growth and consumer prices (with and without energy components) in the predictive model for the return volatility of energy prices. The analyses are distinctly conducted for full sample, pre-GFC and post-GFC periods. On average, the findings support the inclusion of these macroeconomic information, particularly output growth and realized volatility, as they yield good in-sample and out-of-sample predictability results for the return volatility. However, the study finds contrasting evidence between the pre-GFC and post-GFC periods.