Target alignment, dilution and forecast selection when cross-sectional forecasts share a common target
共享横截面预测目标时的目标对齐、稀释与预测者选择
Forecasters often score the same units per date against one standardized realized outcome. We show that every standardized forecast splits exactly into a component aligned with this common target and a component uncorrelated with it. Three consequences follow: forecast-error correlation largely mirrors forecast correlation and is therefore a poor measure of diversity; an equally weighted combination beats a no-information forecast only when average alignment is large…