This article attempts to examine whether the equity premium in the United States can be predicted from a com-prehensive set of 18 economic and financial predictors over a monthly out-of-sample period of 2000:2 to 2011:12, using an in-sample period of 1990:2-2000:1. To do so, we consider, in...

This article evaluates the predictability of the equity risk premium in the United States by comparing the individual and complementary predictive power of macroeconomic variables which are popular in academia and technical indicators which are widely used by practitioners in the market using a...

The global financial crisis that began in 2007-08 demonstrated how severe the impact of financial markets’ stress on real economic activity can be. In the wake of the financial crisis policy-makers and decision-makers across the world identified the critical need for a better understanding of...

This paper uses a k-th order nonparametric Granger causality test to analyze whether firm-level, economic policy and macroeconomic uncertainty indicators predict movements in real stock returns and their volatility. Linear Granger causality tests show that whilst economic policy and...

Recent empirical evidence based on a linear framework tends to suggest that a Markov-switching version of the consumption-aggregate wealth ratio (cayMS), developed to account for structural breaks, is a better predictor of stock returns than the conventional measure (cay) – a finding we...

This paper uses the Markov-switching multifractal (MSM) model and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH)-type models to forecast oil price volatility over the time periods from January 02, 1875 to December 31, 1895 and from January 03, 1977 to March 24, 2014. Based on...

In this paper, we test for the structural stability of both bivariate and multivariate predictive regression models for equity premium in South Africa over the period of 1990:01 to 2010:12, based on 23 financial and macroeconomic variables. We employ a wide range of methodologies, namely, the...

We explore how the ECB sets interest rates in the context of policy reaction functions. Using both real-time and revised information, we consider linear and nonlinear policy functions in inflation, output and a measure of financial conditions. We find that amongst Taylor rule models, linear and...

This paper analyses the out-of-sample forecasting performance of non-linear vs. linear models for the South African Rand against the United States dollar and the British Pound, in real terms. We compare the forecasting performance of point, interval and density forecasts for non-linear Band- TAR...

In this paper we provide an in-sample assessment of how the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) sets policy rate in the context of both linear and nonlinear Taylor type rule models of monetary policy. Given the controversial debate on whether central banks should target asset prices for economic...