Flexibility without foresight: the predictive limitations of mixture models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Hess, Stephane, van Cranenburgh, Sander
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Hess, Stephane
van Cranenburgh, Sander
author_facet Hess, Stephane
van Cranenburgh, Sander
contents Models allowing for random heterogeneity, such as mixed logit and latent class, are generally observed to obtain superior model fit and yield detailed insights into unobserved preference heterogeneity. Using theoretical arguments and two case studies on revealed and stated choice data, this paper highlights that these advantages do not translate into any benefits in forecasting, whether looking at prediction performance or the recovery of market shares. The only exception arises when using conditional distributions in making predictions for the same individuals included in the estimation sample, which obviously precludes any out-of-sample forecasting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09185
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Flexibility without foresight: the predictive limitations of mixture models
Hess, Stephane
van Cranenburgh, Sander
Econometrics
Models allowing for random heterogeneity, such as mixed logit and latent class, are generally observed to obtain superior model fit and yield detailed insights into unobserved preference heterogeneity. Using theoretical arguments and two case studies on revealed and stated choice data, this paper highlights that these advantages do not translate into any benefits in forecasting, whether looking at prediction performance or the recovery of market shares. The only exception arises when using conditional distributions in making predictions for the same individuals included in the estimation sample, which obviously precludes any out-of-sample forecasting.
title Flexibility without foresight: the predictive limitations of mixture models
topic Econometrics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09185