It is common practice to identify the number and sources of shocks that move implied volatilities across space and time by applying Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to pooled covariance matrices of changes in implied volatilities. This approach, however, is likely to result in a loss of...

Political stock markets (PSM) are sometimes seen as substitutes for opinion polls. On the bases of a behavioral model, specific preconditions were drawn out under which manipulation in PSM can weaken this argument. Evidence for manipulation is reported from the data of two separate PSM during...

For the Euro 2000 Soccer Championships an experimental asset market was condueted, with traders buying and selling contracts on the winners of individual matches. Market-generated probabilities are compared to professional bet quotas, and factors that are responsible for the quality of the...

VaR models are related to statistical forecast systems. Within that framework different forecast tasks including Value-at-Risk and shortfall are discussed and motivated. A backtesting method based on the shortfall is developed and applied to VaR forecasts of areal portfolio. The analysis shows...

This paper is an example of data mining in action. The database we are mining contains 1085 profiles of individuals who have downloaded the statistical software XploRe. Each profile contains the responses to an online questionnaire comprised of questions about such things as an individuals'...

A language of a statistical system is important, even though it bas an effective graphical user interface. A language may be used to control the statistical system at will and to implement new statistical procedures which are not realized in the system at the beginning. This paper introduces the...