In this paper we study risk-neutral densities (RNDs) for the German stock market. The use of option prices allows us to quantify the risk-neutral probabilities of various levels of the DAX index. For the period from December 1995 to November 2001, we implement the mixture of log-normals model...

Financial decision makers often consider the information in currency option valuations when making assessments about future exchange rates. The purpose of this paper is to systematically assess the quality of option based volatility, interval and density forecasts. We use a unique dataset...

We assess whether the euro had an impact first on the degree of integration of European financial markets, and, second, on the euro area term structure. We propose two methodologies to measure integration: one relies on time-varying GARCH correlations, and the other one on a regression...

This paper derives forecasts for euro area real GDP growth based on a bottom up approach from the production side. That is, GDP is forecast via the forecasts of value added across the different branches of activity, which is quite new in the literature. Linear regression models in the form of...

We propose a benchmark prior for the estimation of vector autoregressions: a prior about initial growth rates of the modeled series. We first show that the Bayesian vs frequentist small sample bias controversy is driven by different default initial conditions. These initial conditions are...

This study investigated the relationship between financial development and economic growth for Ireland for the period 1965-2007 using a vector error correction model (VECM). Questions were raised whether financial development causes economic growth or reversely taking into account the positive...

This study examines the time series behavior of investment in physical capital, human capital (comprising education and health) and output in a co-integration framework, taking growth of primary gross enrolment rate and a dummy for structural adjustment programme (openness which has been...

This study examines the relationship between economic growth as measured by GDP per capita and foreign direct investment for Singapore, using the methodology of Granger causality and vector auto regression (VAR). Evidence shows that there is a unidirectional Granger causation from foreign direct...

This study examines the impact of volatility shifts on volatility persistence for three major sector indices of Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and ISE National 100 index over the period beginning from 1997 and ending in 2009. The exponential generalized autoregressive conditional...

In recent years, the emergence of rising budget deficit is the main reason forcing economists to investigate the reasons for changes in fiscal balances. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between budget deficit and macroeconomic fundamentals using data from Azerbaijan....