A new empirical reduced-form model for credit rating transitions is introduced. It is a parametric intensity-based duration model with multiple states and driven by exogenous covariates and latent dynamic factors. The model has a generalized semi-Markov structure designed to accommodate many of...

Adaptive Polar Sampling (APS) is proposed as a Markov chain Monte Carlo method for Bayesian analysis of models with ill-behaved posterior distributions. In order to sample efficiently from such a distribution, a location-scale transformation and a transformation to polar coordinates are used....

We apply the splitting method to three well-known counting problems, namely 3-SAT, random graphs with prescribed degrees, and binary contingency tables. We present an enhanced version of the splitting method based on the capture-recapture technique, and show by experiments the superiority of...

We model 1981–2002 annual US default frequencies for a panel of firms in different rating and age classes. The data is decomposed into a systematic and firm-specific risk component, where the systematic component reflects the general economic conditions and default climate. We have to cope...

We model and measure simultaneous large losses of the market value of insurers to understand the impact of shocks on the insurance sector. The downside risk of insurers is explicitly modelled by common and idiosyncratic risk factors. Since reinsurance is important for the capacity of insurers,...

A sequence of real numbers (<I>x_n</I>) is Benford if the significands, i.e. the fraction

In this paper it is argued that occupational and organizational codes maximize the correspondence between activities and easily observable characteristics at the time of their development. Over time the codes become less relevant, leading to the false impression that the segregation of...

This paper concerns estimating parameters in a high-dimensional dynamic factor

We review the past 25 years of time series research that has been published in journals managed by the International Institute of Forecasters (<I>Journal of Forecasting </I>1982-1985; <I>International Journal of Forecasting </I>1985-2005). During this period, over one third of all papers published in these...</i></i>

This paper introduces the Werden-Froeb Index (WFI) to assist in evaluating merger-specific efficiencies in horizontal mergers. The index measures the weighted average reduction in marginal costs required to restore pre-merger equilibrium prices and quantities after the (full or partial) merger...