This paper presents theoretical models and their empirical results for the return and variance dynamics of German stocks. A factor structure is used in order to allow for a parsimonious modeling of the first two moments of returns. Dynamic factor models with GARCH dynamics (GARCH(1,1)-M,...

In this paper we propose a simple model to forecast industrial production in Italy. We show that the forecasts produced using the model outperform some popular forecasts as well as those stemming from a trading days- and outlier-robust ARIMA model used as a benchmark. We show that the use of...

We develop a new model where the dynamic structure of the asset price, after the fundamental value is removed, is subject to two different regimes. One regime reflects the normal period where the asset price divided by the dividend is assumed to follow a mean-reverting process around a...

We analyze the properties of various methods for bias-correcting parameter estimates in both stationary and non-stationary vector autoregressive models. First, we show that two analytical bias formulas from the existing literature are in fact identical. Next, based on a detailed simulation...

This paper presents the parallel computing implementation of the MitISEM algorithm, labeled Parallel MitISEM. The basic MitISEM algorithm provides an automatic and flexible method to approximate a non-elliptical target density using adaptive mixtures of Student-t densities, where only a kernel...

A methodology based on the multivariate generalized Butterwoth filter for extracting the business cycles of the whole economy and of its productive sectors is developed. The method is then illustrated through an application to the Italian gross value added time series of the main economic sectors.

This paper discusses techniques for estimating structural vector autoregressions. Especially when monetary policy shocks are estimated, VAR residuals turn out to be leptokurtic. It is argued that this is no coincidence but follows directly from the properties of monetary policy decisions. The...