The common approach to evaluating a model in the structural VAR literature is to compare the impulse responses from structural VARs run on the data to the theoretical impulse responses from the model. The Sims-Cogley-Nason approach instead compares the structural VARs run on the data to...

This paper explores two perspectives on the rational expectations hypothesis. One perspective is that of economic agents in such a model, who form inferences about the future using probabilities implied by the model. The other is that of an econometrician who makes inferences about the...

We develop a new parametric estimation procedure for option panels observed with error which relies on asymptotic approximations assuming an ever increasing set of observed option prices in the moneyness- maturity (cross-sectional) dimension, but with a fixed time span. We develop consistent...

The notion of model-free implied volatility (MFIV), constituting the basis for the highly publicized VIX volatility index, can be hard to measure with accuracy due to the lack of precise prices for options with strikes in the tails of the return distribution. This is reflected in practice as the...

We develop asset pricing models' implications for portfolio efficiency when there is conditioning information in the form of a set of lagged instruments. A model of expected returns identifies a portfolio that should be minimum variance efficient with respect to the conditioning information. Our...

We study a general class of models with social interactions that might display multiple equilibria. We propose an estimation procedure for these models and evaluate its efficiency and computational feasibility relative to different approaches taken to the curse of dimensionality implied by the...

Renewed interest in fiscal policy has increased the use of quantitative models to evaluate policy. Because of modelling uncertainty, it is essential that policy evaluations be robust to alternative assumptions. We find that models currently being used in practice to evaluate fiscal policy...

The conventional wisdom is (i) that fiscal austerity was the main culprit for the recessions experienced by many countries, especially in Europe, since 2010 and (ii) that this round of fiscal consolidation was much more costly than past ones. The contribution of this paper is a clarification of...

We develop a sequential procedure to test the adequacy of jump-diffusion models for return distributions. We rely on intraday data and nonparametric volatility measures, along with a new jump detection technique and appropriate conditional moment tests, for assessing the import of jumps and...

Volatility permeates modern financial theories and decision making processes. As such, accurate measures and good forecasts of future volatility are critical for the implementation and evaluation of asset pricing theories. In response to this, a voluminous literature has emerged for modeling the...