This paper deals with the estimation of the lognormal-Pareto and the lognormal-Generalized Pareto mixture distributions. The log-likelihood function is discontinuous, so that Maximum Likelihood Estimation is not asymptotically optimal. For this reason, we develop an alternative method based on...

El fuerte descenso de la actividad económica registrado en España durante 2009 y 2010 no tiene precedentes en la historia más reciente. Tras diez años de prosperidad con un crecimiento medio del 3.7%, el escenario macroeconómico actual somete a estrés los modelos de predicción...

The sharp decline in economic activity registered in Spain over 2008 and 2009 has no precedents in recent history. After ten prosperous years with an average GDP growth of 3.7%, the current recession places non-judgemental forecasting models under stress. This paper evaluates the Spanish GDP...

Bayesian inference requires an analyst to set priors. Setting the right prior is crucial for precise forecasts. This paper analyzes how optimal prior changes when an economy is hit by a recession. For this task, an autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model is chosen. The results show that a...

The aggregate production function approach is one way to forecast future energy demand (a step in forecasting carbon dioxide emissions, for example) and to analyze the aggregate economic effects of measures such as the increase of taxes on energy use. The results of such an approach tend to...

The aggregate production function approach is one way to forecast future energy demand (a step in forecasting carbon dioxide emissions, for example) and to analyze the aggregate economic effects of measures such as the increase of taxes on energy use. The results of such an approach tend to...

This article argues that conventional approaches to the treatment of seasonality in econometric investigation are often inappropriate. A more appropriate technique is to allow all regression coefficients to vary with the season, but to constrain them to do so in a smooth fashion. A Bayesian...