Modern econometrics requires implementation of highly specialized software. In contrast to mathematical arguments used in implementing new econometric techniques the corresponding software algorithms require specific platforms. The specialization of hardware and software, in fact, seriously...

This paper argues that skill formation is a life-cycle process and develops the implications of this insight for Scottish social policy. Families are major producers of skills, and a successful policy needs to promote effective families and to supplement failing ones. Targeted early...

Testing the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process with an intercept is considered. In addition to the likelihood ratio (LR) tests developed by Johansen and Juselius and others we also consider an alternative class of tests which is based on estimating the trend parameters of the...

Stochastic Volatility (SV) models are widely used in financial applications. To decide whether standard parametric restrictions are justified for a given dataset, a statistical test is required. In this paper, we develop such a test based on the linear state space representation. We provide a...

Tests for the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process are considered which allow for possible exogenous shifts in the mean of the data generation process. The break points are assumed to be known a priori. It is proposed to estimate and remove the deterministic terms such as mean,...

For over a decade, nonparametric modelling has been successfully applied to study nonlinear structures in financial time series. It is well known that the usual nonparametric models often have less than satisfactory performance when dealing with more than one lag. When the mean has an additive...

Motivated by a nonparametric GARCH model we consider nonparametric additive regression and autoregression models in the special case that the additive components are linked parametrically. We show that the parameter can be estimated with parametric rate and give the normal limit. Our procedure...

Testing the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process which may have a deterministic linear trend is considered. Previous proposals for dealing with such a situation are either to allow for a deterministic trend term in computing a suitable test statistic or else remove the linear...