Replications of Forecasting Research

We examined the frequency of replications published in the two leading forecasting journals, the International Journal of Forecasting (IJF) and the Journal of Forecasting (JoF). Replications in the IJF and JoF comprised 9.4% of the empirical papers. This compares with various areas of management science ranging from 2.2% in the Journal of Marketing Research to 18.1% in the American Economic Review. We also found that 36.2% of replications in forecasting journals provided full support, 44.7% partial support, and 19.1% no support for initial study findings. Given the importance of replications, we recommend steps to encourage replications, such as requiring full-disclosure of methods and data for all published papers, and inviting researchers to replicate specified important papers.