In this paper, I examine the properties of the class of generalized empirical likelihood estimators of moment-condition models. These nonparametric likelihood estimators satisfy exactly the moment conditions and automatically remove any bias due to a lack of centering. Moreover, the bias of the...

We propose new approaches to test for spanning in the return and stochastic discount factor mean-variance frontiers, which assess if either the centred or uncentred mean and cost representing portfolios are shared by the initial and extended sets of assets. We show that our proposed tests are...

This paper considers two models to deal with an outcome variable that contains a large fraction of zeros, such as individual expenditures on health care: a sample-selection model and a two-part model. The sample-selection model uses two possibly correlated processes to determine the outcome: a...

This paper shows how a high level matrix programming language may be used to perform Monte Carlo simulation, bootstrapping, estimation by maximum likelihood and GMM, and kernel regression in parallel on symmetric multiprocessor computers or clusters of workstations. The implementation of...

A number of recent papers have concluded that stochastic volatility plays a prominent role in describing the business cycle, particularly for the characterization of monetary policy. The impact of including stochastic volatility in DSGE models remains, however, unexplored. This paper therefore...

The performance of Monte Carlo integration methods like importance-sampling or Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo procedures depends greatly on the choice of the importance- or candidate-density. Such a density must typically be "close" to the target density to yield numerically accurate results with...

The shape of the likelihood of several recently developed econometric models is often non-elliptical. Learning this shape using Gibbs sampling is discussed in this paper. A systematic analysis using graphical and computational methods is presented. Examples of the models considered in this paper...

Stochastic-variance models are important in describing and forecasting time-varying volatilities of financial time series. The introduction of jump components, in both the returns and the volatility process, improves the fit to the data. The goal of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of...

This paper describes and analyses the use of the Filtered Historical Simulation algorithm in pricing spread options. Spread options are contracts whose payoff depends on the price difference (spread) between two or more underlying assets at a future date. Such kind of options are written in the...