Divergent priors are improper when defined on unbounded supports. Bartlett's paradox has been taken to imply that using improper priors results in ill-defined Bayes factors, preventing model comparison by posterior probabilities. However many improper priors have attractive properties that...

A test for serial independence is proposed which is related to the BDS test but focuses on tail event probabilities rather than probabilities near the center of the distribution. The motivation behind this approach is to obtain a test more suitable for detecting structure in the tails, such as...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in <I>Computational Statistics & Data Analysis</I> (2012). Vol. 56(11), 3398-3414.<p> Strategic choices for efficient and accurate evaluation of marginal likelihoods by means of Monte Carlo simulation methods are studied for the case of highly non-elliptical...</p></i>

This discussion paper led to a publication in 'Computational Statistics & Data Analysis' 56(11), pp. 3398-1414.Important choices for efficient and accurate evaluation of marginal likelihoods by means of Monte Carlo simulation methods are studied for the case of highly non-elliptical posterior...

This paper empirically analyzes moral hazard in car insurance using a dynamic theory of an insuree's dynamic risk (ex ante moral hazard) and claim (ex post moral hazard) choices and Dutch longitudinal micro data. We use the theory to characterize the heterogeneous dynamic changes in incentives...

See also C. Diks: <A href="http://www1.fee.uva.nl/cendef/upload/6/ecss_diks_r1.pdf">'Nonparametric tests for independence'</A>. In R. Meyers (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2009. <P> Tests for serial independence and goodness-of-fit based on divergence notions between probability distributions, such as the...</p></a>

An intensive and still growing body of research focuses on estimating a portfolio’s Value-at-Risk.Depending on both the degree of non-linearity of the instruments comprised in the portfolio and thewillingness to make restrictive assumptions on the underlying statistical distributions, a...

Regression analyses of cross-country economic growth data are complicated by two main forms of model uncertainty: the uncertainty in selecting explanatory variables and the uncertainty in specifying the functional form of the regression function. Most discussions in the literature address these...

We consider the question whether top tennis players in a top tournament (Wimbledon) employ an optimal (efficient) service strategy. We show that top players do not, in general, follow an optimal strategy, and we provide a lower bound of the inefficiency. The inefficiency regarding winning a...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in the <I>Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control</I>, 34(9), 1596-1609.<P> We introduce a statistical test for comparing the predictive accuracy of competing copula specifications in multivariate density forecasts, based on the Kullback-Leibler Information...</p></i>