We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables with the example of age-specific mortality in the U.S., building on the Lee-Carter approach and extendingit in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables underlying...

The higher our aspirations, the higher the probability that we have to adjust them downwards when forming more realistic expectations later on. This paper shows that the costs induced by high aspirations are not trivial. We first develop a theoretical framework to identify the factors that...

Empirical studies have shown that a large number of financial asset returns exhibit fat tails and are often characterized by volatility clustering and asymmetry. Also revealed as a stylized fact is Long memory or long range dependence in market volatility, with significant impact on pricing and...

In the era of Basel II a powerful tool for bankruptcy prognosis isvital for banks. The tool must be precise but also easily adaptable tothe bank's objections regarding the relation of false acceptances (TypeI error) and false rejections (Type II error). We explore the suitabil-ity of Smooth...

This paper offers a new method for estimation and forecasting of the linear and nonlinear time series when the stationarity assumption is violated. Our general local parametric approach particularly applies to general varying-coefficient parametric models, such as AR or GARCH, whose coefficients...

A solution method is derived in this paper for solving a system of linear rationalexpectations equation with lagged expectations (e.g., models incorporating sticky information) using the method of undetermined coefficients for the infinite MA representation. The method applies a combination of a...

Let W denote a family of probability distributions with parameter space t, and WG be a subfamily of W depending on a mapping G : O -- t. Extremum estimations of the parameter vector v e O are considered. Some sufficient conditions are presented to ensure the uniqueness with probability one. As...

We propose a stochastic control approach to the dynamic maximization ofrobust utility functionals that are defined in terms of logarithmic utility and a dynamically consistent convex risk measure. The underlying market is modeled by a diffusion process whose coefficients are driven by an...

As a main step in the numerical solution of control problems in continuous time,the controlled process is approximated by sequences of controlled Markov chains, thus discretising time and space. A new feature in this context is to allow for delay in the dynamics. The existence of an optimal...

The subject of the present paper is a simplified model for a symmetric bistable system with memory or delay, the reference model, which in the presence of noise exhibits a phenomenon similar to what is known as stochastic resonance. The reference model is given by a one dimensional parametrized...