This chapter presents a unified set of estimation methods for fitting a rich array of models describing dynamic relationships within a longitudinal data setting. The discussion surveys approaches for characterizing the micro dynamics of continuous dependent variables both over time and across...

Financial analysts assume that the reliability of predictions derived from regression analysis improves with sample size. This is generally true because larger samples tend to produce less noisy results than smaller samples. But this is not always the case. Some observations are more relevant...

The topic of this chapter is forecasting with nonlinear models. First, a number of well-known nonlinear models are introduced and their properties discussed. These include the smooth transition regression model, the switching regression model whose univariate counterpart is called threshold...

This paper proposes and calibrates a consistent multi-factor affine term structure mortality model for longevity risk applications. We show that this model is appropriate for fitting historical mortality rates. Without traded mortality instruments the choice of risk-neutral measure is not unique...

With the decline in the mortality level of populations, national social security systems and insurance companies of most developed countries are reconsidering their mortality tables taking into account the longevity risk. The Lee and Carter model is the first discrete-time stochastic model to...

Stochastic modeling of mortality rates focuses on fitting linear models to logarithmically adjusted mortality data from the middle or late ages. Whilst this modeling enables insurers to project mortality rates and hence price mortality products it does not provide good fit for younger aged...

We review key aspects of forecasting using nonlinear models. Because economic models are typically misspecified, the resulting forecasts provide only an approximation to the best possible forecast. Although it is in principle possible to obtain superior approximations to the optimal forecast...

Accurate and robust short-term load forecasting plays a significant role in electric power operations. This paper proposes a variant of genetic programming, improved by incorporating semantic awareness in algorithm, to address a short term load forecasting problem. The objective is to...

The nonlinear modelization has experimented a great resurgence of the hand of Chaos Theory, which shown the possibility of obtaining complex behaviors produced endogenously by the dynamics of the model, without the necessity to include exogenous random shocks. On the other hand, the importance...

This paper aims to introduce a nonlinear model to forecast macroeconomic time series using a large number of predictors. The technique used to summarize the predictors in a small number of variables is Principal Component Analysis (PC), while the method used to capture nonlinearity is artificial...