We estimate time series of option implied Probabilities of Default (PoDs) for 19 major US financial institutions from 2002 to 2012. These PoDs are estimated as mass points of entropy based risk neutral densities and subsequently corrected for maturity dependence. The ob- tained time series are...

Decision-makers often consult different experts to build reliable forecasts on variables of interest. Combining more opinions and calibrating them to maximize the forecast accuracy is consequently a crucial issue in several economic problems. This paper applies a Bayesian beta mixture model to...

This paper improves a kernel-smoothed test of symmetry through combining it with a new class of asymmetric kernels called the generalized gamma kernels. It is demonstrated that the improved test statistic has a normal limit under the null of symmetry and is consistent under the alternative. A...

This paper proposes a methodology to incorporate bivariate models in numerical computations of counterfactual distributions. The proposal is to extend the works of Machado and Mata (2005) and Melly (2005) using the grid method to generate pairs of random variables. This contribution allows...

In economics, rank-size regressions provide popular estimators of tail exponents of heavy-tailed distributions. We discuss the properties of this approach when the tail of the distribution is regularly varying rather than strictly Pareto. The estimator then over-estimates the true value in the...