We determine the magnitude and nature of systematic default risk using 1971{2009) default data from Moody's. We disentangle systematic risk factors due to business cycle effects, common default dynamics (frailty), and industry-specific dynamics (including contagion). To quantify the contribution...

In this paper, we present a directed search model of the housing market. The pricing mechanism we analyze reflects the way houses are bought and sold in the United States. Our model is consistent with the observation that houses are sometimes sold above, sometimes below and sometimes at the...

Many seasonal macroeconomic time series are subject to changes in their means and variances over a long time horizon. In this paper we propose a general treatment for the modelling of time-varying features in economic time series. We show that time series models with mean and variance functions...

The basic structural time series model has been designed for the modelling and forecasting of seasonal economic time series. In this paper we explore a generalisation of the basic structural time series model in which the time-varying trigonometric terms associated with different seasonal...

We propose a new class of observation-driven time-varying parameter models for dynamic volatilities and correlations to handle time series from heavy-tailed distributions. The model adopts generalized autoregressive score dynamics to obtain a time-varying covariance matrix of the multivariate...

We advocate the use of absolute moment ratio statistics in conjunctionwith standard variance ratio statistics in order to disentangle lineardependence, non-linear dependence, and leptokurtosis in financial timeseries. Both statistics are computed for multiple return horizonssimultaneously, and...

This paper provides an empirical description of the relationshipbetween the trading system operated by a stockexchange and the transaction costs faced by heterogeneous investors who use the exchange. Therecent introduction ofSETS in the London Stock Exchange provides an excellent opportunity...

If distortions in the labour market lead to inefficiently highunemployment, and policy makers cannot enter into a binding policy commitment before nominal wages are set, excessive inflation may result due to a credibility problem. This is the famous Kydland&Prescott - Barro&Gordon inflationary...