Facts

• In the legal arena, a retroactive judicial review of a judgment may be allowed based on relevant facts --- not previously considered --- that could affect outcome of the case. The availability of this type of review is based on a jurisdiction's applicable laws related to retroactive case review. State and federal post-conviction relief proceedings, for example, give a court latitude to reconsider a judgment based on factors such as the suppression of relevant evidence by a prosecutor.
  
  

Rules

• The rule applied to decide the outcome of a given matter can be revised or overturned. A new or revised rule can be implemented to have a retroactive application to past matters. This can, in theory, occur in law. While there are different types of retroactive legislation, one kind can impact previously adjudicated matters by requiring a case analysis using the revised rule. This sometimes occurs in criminal law, resulting in a new judicial review of the judgments based on the new or revised legislation.
  
  

Analysis

• A reanalysis may include additional variables that can aid in developing forecasts or place a past event in a larger historical context. Scientific studies that use time series models frequently demand retroactive analysis to account for additional data. This is especially true in environmental studies where a vast amount of new data, as well as assessment techniques and technologies, is made available to researchers.
  
  

Event Studies

• An event study is one form of back-testing, or retroactive analysis, that assesses the impact of an event on a company. It is a technique used to measure market efficiency. A back-test evaluation may relate to the impact of certain types of public corporate announcements on a company's stock pricing. This could be a historical impact assessment on securities pricing after quarterly report announcements, which communicate growth or stagnating performance data.