In this paper we replace the Gaussian errors in the standard Gaussian, linear state space model with stochastic volatility processes. This is called a GSSF-SV model. We show that conventional MCMC algorithms for this type of model are ineffective, but that this problem can be removed by...

It is generally believed that for the power of unit root tests, only the time span and not the observation frequency matters. In this paper we show that the observation frequency does matter when the high-frequency data display fat tails and volatility clustering, as is typically the case for...

The failure to describe the time series behaviour of most realexchange rates as temporary deviations from fixedlong-term means may be due to time variation of the equilibriathemselves, see Engel (2000). We implement thisidea using an unobserved components model and decompose theobservations on...

The validity of family background variables instrumenting education in income regressions has been much criticized. In this paper, we use data of the 2004 German Socio-Economic Panel and Bayesian analysis in order to analyze to what degree violations of the strong validity assumption affect the...

An intensive and still growing body of research focuses on estimating a portfolio’s Value-at-Risk.Depending on both the degree of non-linearity of the instruments comprised in the portfolio and thewillingness to make restrictive assumptions on the underlying statistical distributions, a...

Exchange rates typically exhibit time-varying patterns in both means andvariances. The histograms of such series indicate heavy tails. In thispaper we construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze theimplications of such time series patterns for currency risk management.Our approach...

We develop a mixed complementarity programming (MCP) based estimating framework for non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to examine the evolution of market access conditions in the textile and clothing sectors, working with a panel of bilateral trade data on textile and clothing trade, underlying...

Estimation using simulation techniques may be very time consuming. Specification tests for structuralstability often require more than one of such computationally demanding estimators. Typically one for thesample, one for the post-sample and one for the combination of sample and post-sample is...