We define the class of local Lévy processes. These are Lévy processes time changed by an inhomogeneous local speed function. The local speed function is a deterministic function of time and the level of the process itself. We show how to reverse engineer the local speed function from traded...

This paper discusses the estimation of models of the term structure of interest rates. After reviewing the term structure models, specifically the Nelson-Siegel Model and Affine Term- Structure Model, this paper estimates the terms structure of Treasury bond yields for the United States with...

Hong Kong SAR's government faces the dual challenges of volatile revenue and medium term spending pressures arising from a rapidly aging population. Age-related spending pressures raise long-run sustainability concerns, while revenue volatility creates risks to service provision, possibly...

Monte Carlo methods are now an essential part of the statistician's toolbox, to the point of being more familiar to graduate students than the measure theoretic notions upon which they are based! We recall in this note some of the advances made in the design of Monte Carlo techniques towards...

We propose a generic framework for the analysis of Monte Carlo simulation schemes of backward SDEs. The general results are used to re-visit the convergence of the algorithm suggested by Bouchard and Touzi (2004) [6]. By keeping the higher order terms in the expansion of the Skorohod integrals...

This paper deals with some computational aspects in the Bayesian analysis of statistical models with intractable normalizing constants. In the presence of intractable normalizing constants in the likelihood function, traditional MCMC methods cannot be applied. We propose an approach to sample...

While Robert and Rousseau (2010) addressed the foundational aspects of Bayesian analysis, the current chapter details its practical aspects through a review of the computational methods available for approximating Bayesian procedures. Recent innovations like Monte Carlo Markov chain, sequential...

Gibbs sampling has had great success in the analysis of mixture models. In particular, the “latent variable” formulation of the mixture model greatly reduces computational complexity. However, one failing of this approach is the possible existence of almost-absorbing states, called trapping...