In the sequel of its seminal application in Davidson, Hendry, Srba and Yeo (1978) the single equation error correction model has been widely used in empirical practice. Providing a clear distinction between short- and long-run dynamics this model allows OLS-methods to be as efficient as...

In this work, we introduce a smoothed influence function that constitute a theoretical tool for studying the outliers robustness properties of a large class of nonparametric estimators. With this tool, we first show the nonrobustness of the Nadaraya-Watson estimator of regression. Then we show...

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...

We propose a new estimator for nonparametric regression based on local likelihood estimation using an estimated error score function obtained from the residuals of a preliminary nonparametric regression. We show that our estimator is asymptotically equivalent to the infeasible local maximum...

Using option prices the expectations of the market participants concerning the underlying asset can be extracted as well as the uncertainty surrounding these expectations. In this paper a mixture of lognormal density functions will be assumed to analyze options on three-month Euribor futures for...

Using 1985-1999 data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) to analyze wages we confirm the hypothesis that existing computer wage premiums are determined by individual ability or other unobserved individual characteristics rather than by productivity effects. While a rather large...

Background: Studies from several countries have shown that self-rated health is an independent predictor of mortality. However, no empirical evidence exists for Germany so far. We investigate the effectiveness of (i) self-ratings of health by individuals and (ii) changes in self-rated health, as...

Healthcare expenditure has increased substantially in all western industrialized countries in the last decades. The necessity to contain the increase in health care expenditure has motivated the Analysis of its determinants to explain differences across countries and health systems. However,...

In a complete financial market every contingent claim can be hedged perfectly. In an incomplete market it is possible to stay on the safe side by superhedging. But such strategies may require a large amount of initial capital. Here we study the question what an investor can do who is unwilling...