This essay reviews progress in empirical economics since Leamer's (1983) critique. Leamer highlighted the benefits of sensitivity analysis, a procedure in which researchers show how their results change with changes in specification or functional form. Sensitivity analysis has had a salutary but...

In a recent paper Cavaliere et al. (2012) develop bootstrap implementations of the (pseudo-) likelihood ratio [PLR] co-integration rank test and associated sequential rank determination procedure of Johansen (1996). The bootstrap samples are constructed using the restricted parameter estimates...

Determining the co-integrating rank of a system of variables has become a fundamental aspect of applied research in macroeconomics and finance. It is wellknown that standard asymptotic likelihood ratio tests for co-integration rank of Johansen (1996) can be unreliable in small samples with...

Many key macro-economic and financial variables are characterised by permanent changes in unconditional volatility. In this paper we analyse vector autoregressions with non-stationary (unconditional) volatility of a very general form, which includes single and multiple volatility breaks as...

In this paper, we consider a general class of vector error correction models which allow for asymmetric and non-linear error correction. We provide asymptotic results for (quasi-)maximum likelihood (QML) based estimators and tests. General hypothesis testing is considered, where testing for...

We analyse the properties of the conventional Gaussian-based co-integrating rank tests of Johansen (1996) in the case where the vector of series under test is driven by globally stationary, conditionally heteroskedastic (martingale difference) innovations. We first demonstrate that the limiting...

This paper considers asymptotic inference in the multivariate BEKK model based on (co-)variance targeting (VT). By defi?nition the VT estimator is a two-step estimator and the theory presented is based on expansions of the modifi?ed likelihood function, or estimating function, corresponding to...

This survey focuses on two families of nonlinear vector time series models, the family of Vector Threshold Regression models and that of Vector Smooth Transition Regression models. These two model classes contain incomplete models in the sense that strongly exogeneous variables are allowed in...

In this paper, we focus on the building of an invariant distribution function associated to a non-stationary sample. After discussing some specific problems encountered by non-stationarity inside samples like the "spurious" long memory effect, we build a sequence of stationary processes...

In this paper we propose a new multivariate GARCH model with time-varying conditional correlation structure. The time-varying conditional correlations change smoothly between two extreme states of constant correlations according to a predetermined or exogenous transition variable. An LM-test is...