Recent portfolio choice asset pricing and option valuation models highlight the importance of skewness and kurtosis. Since skewness and kurtosis are related to extreme variations they are also important for Value-at-Risk measurements. Our framework builds on a GARCH model with a condi-tional...

The entropy principle yields, for a given set of moments, a density that involves the smallest amount of prior information,. We first show how entropy densities may be constructed in a numerically efficient way as the minimization of a potential. Next, for the case where the first four moments...

We develop a new methodology that measures conditional dependency. We achieve this by using copula functions that link marginal distributions, here chosen to obey a GARCH-type model with time-varying skewness and kurtosis. We apply this model to daily returns of stock-market indices. We find...

We evaluate how departure from normality may affect the allocation of assets. A Taylor series expansion of the expected utility allows to focus on certain moments and to compute numerically the optimal portfolio allocation. A decisive advantage of this approach is that it remains operational...

In this paper we give a precise definition of long-run causality in a multivariate non-stationary, possibly cointegrated, framework. A variable is said to be causal for another in the long run if knowledge of the past of the former improves long-run predictions of the latter. In a VAR framework,...

Swaps are one of the major innovations of the 80s but there are little empirical studies on interest rates swaps (IRS), especially on US and European markets. To understand how swap pricing works, we estimate IRS valuation models for the US, German and French swap markets. On one hand, we derive...

This paper investigates the implications of cross-country heterogeneity within the euro area for the design of optimal monetary policy. We build an optimizing-based multi-country model (MCM) describing the euro area in which differences between structural parameters across countries are allowed....

We quantify the capital shortfall that results from a global financial crisis by using a macrofinance dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that captures the interactions between the financial and real sectors of the economy. We show that a crisis similar to that observed in 2008...

This paper deals with the implications of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure on the dynamics of interest rates, which are supposed to have a restricted VAR representation. Constraints on the parameters of the restricted VAR lead us to prefer an indirect estimation based on the...