The higher our aspirations, the higher the probability that we have to adjust them downwards when forming more realistic expectations later on. This paper shows that the costs induced by high aspirations are not trivial. We first develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors that...

Empirical studies have shown that a large number of financial asset returns exhibit fat tails and are often characterized by volatility clustering and asymmetry. Also revealed as a stylized fact is Long memory or long range dependence in market volatility, with significant impact on pricing and...

In the era of Basel II a powerful tool for bankruptcy prognosis isvital for banks. The tool must be precise but also easily adaptable tothe bank's objections regarding the relation of false acceptances (TypeI error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitabil-ity of Smooth...

This paper offers a new method for estimation and forecasting of the linear and nonlinear time series when the stationarity assumption is violated. Our general local parametric approach particularly applies to general varying-coefficient parametric models, such as AR or GARCH, whose coefficients...

A solution method is derived in this paper for solving a system of linear rationalexpectations equation with lagged expectations (e.g., models incorporating sticky information) using the method of undetermined coefficients for the infinite MA representation. The method applies a combination of a...

Let W denote a family of probability distributions with parameter space t, and WG be a subfamily of W depending on a mapping G : O -- t. Extremum estimations of the parameter vector v e O are considered. Some sufficient conditions are presented to ensure the uniqueness with probability one. As...

High-dimensional regression problems which reveal dynamic behavior are typicallyanalyzed by time propagation of a few number of factors. The inference on thewhole system is then based on the low-dimensional time series analysis. Such highdimensional problems occur frequently in many different...

Econometrics often deals with data under, from the statistical point of view, non-standard conditions such as heteroscedasticity or measurement errors and the estimation methods need thus be either adopted to such conditions or be at least insensitive to them. The methods insensitive to...

This paper presents the software framework JStatCom which is geared towardsthe development of rich GUI clients for numerical procedures. The concept is tosolve all recurring tasks with the help of reusable Java components. Optionally, onecan delegate the execution of special numerical algorithms...

We propose and apply a new approach for analyzing the effects of fiscal policyusing vector autoregressions. Unlike most of the previous literature this approachdoes not require that the contemporaneous reaction of some variables to fiscalpolicy shocks be set to zero or need additional...