We develop a new targeted maximum likelihood estimation method that provides improved forecasting for misspecified linear autoregressive models. The method weighs data points in the observed sample and is useful in the presence of data generating processes featuring structural breaks, complex...

We document a consistent and robust relation between expected equity premia and common risk factors constructed on the basis of small stocks. Empirically, we show that (i) small-stock components of traditional value and momentum factors capture patterns in returns on regional and global...

Economists increasingly pay attention to social capital as an important determinant of macroeconomic growth performance. At the same time, there is discussion regarding the robustness of the results of empirical growth studies. In a seminal paper, Knack and Keefer (1997) assess the effect of...

The paper considers the problem of volatility co-movement, namely as to whether two financial returns have perfectly correlated common volatility process, in the framework of multivariate stochastic volatility models and proposes a test which checks the volatility co-movement. The proposed test...