Residual Value Forecasting Using Asymmetric Cost Functions
This provides incremental improvement in decision support for car lessors by addressing asymmetric error costs in forecasting.
The paper tackled the problem of forecasting car resale prices for leasing contracts, where errors have asymmetric costs, and found that incorporating cost asymmetry into forecast models reduces decision costs by about eight percent compared to standard models.
Leasing is a popular channel to market new cars. Pricing a leasing contract is complicated because the leasing rate embodies an expectation of the residual value of the car after contract expiration. To aid lessors in their pricing decisions, the paper develops resale price forecasting models. A peculiarity of the leasing business is that forecast errors entail different costs. Identifying effective ways to address this characteristic is the main objective of the paper. More specifically, the paper contributes to the literature through i) consolidating and integrating previous work in forecasting with asymmetric cost of error functions, ii) systematically evaluating previous approaches and comparing them to a new approach, and iii) demonstrating that forecasting with asymmetric cost of error functions enhances the quality of decision support in car leasing. For example, under the assumption that the costs of overestimating resale prices is twice that of the opposite error, incorporating corresponding cost asymmetry into forecast model development reduces decision costs by about eight percent, compared to a standard forecasting model. Higher asymmetry produces even larger improvements.