In order to address practical questions in credit portfolio management it is necessary to link the cyclical or systematic components of firm credit risk with the firm’s own idiosyncratic credit risk as well as the systematic credit risk component of every other exposure in the portfolio. This...

This study investigates the predictability of 11 industrialized stock returns with emphasis on the role of U.S. returns. Using monthly data spanning 1980:2 to 2014:12, we show that there exist multiple structural breaks and nonlinearities in the data. Therefore, we employ methods that are...

Employing a dynamic model that captures herding under different market regimes we provide novel evidence on the herding behavior of US-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Our sample is extensive and covers the period from 2/1/2004 to 28/6/2013. Estimates of herding behavior are derived...

This paper examines the impact of oil price uncertainty on South Africa’s stock returns using weekly data that covers the period 1995:07:01 to 2014:08:30. The measure of oil price uncertainty is the conditional standard deviation of the one-step-ahead forecast error for the change in the price...

Based on a representation of policymaker’s preferences that capture inflation zone targeting behaviors, we estimate a flexible model of the monetary policy reaction function of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). To address the current debate on the importance of financial asset prices in...

This paper estimates the optimal monetary authorities’ response to deviations of inflation and output from their target values for South Africa over the inflation targeting era. This is achieved using an empirical framework that allows the central bank’s policy preferences to be zone-like as...

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...

A simple empirical nonlinear framework is used to analyse monetary policy between 1983 and 2007 in South Africa, focusing on the policy of in?ation targeting introduced in Feb 2000, more precisely when the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) announced that an inflation zone targeting regime of...

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...

This paper is the ?rst one to analyze the ability of linear and nonlinear monetary policy rule specifications as well as nonparametric and semiparametric models in forecasting the nominal interest rate setting that describes the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) policy decisions. We augment the...