The Heston model stands out from the class of stochastic volatility (SV) models mainly for two reasons. Firstly, the process for the volatility is non-negative and mean-reverting, which is what we observe in the markets. Secondly, there exists a fast and easily implemented semi-analytical...

In state-of-the-art macroeconomic and labor market models shocks are assumed to be homoscedastic. However, we show that this assumption is much too restrictive. We �find signifi�cant evidence for strong time-varying volatility in all considered labor market time series. First, we estimate...

Dramatic changes in macroeconomic time series volatility pose a challenge to contemporary vector autoregressive (VAR) forecasting models. Traditionally, the conditional volatility of such models had been assumed constant over time or allowed for breaks across long time periods. More recent work,...

This paper considers a class of nonstationary Gaussian processes with possible long-range dependence (LRD) and intermittency. The author proposes a new estimation method to simultaneously estimate both the LRD and intermittency parameter. An application of the proposed estimation method to a...

In this paper, we aim at forecasting the stochastic volatility of key financial market variables with the Kalman filter using stochastic models developed by Taylor (1986,1994) and Nelson (1990). First, we compare a stochastic volatility model relying on the Kalman filter to the conditional...

We propose a model for stock price dynamics that explicitly incorporates random waiting times between trades, also known as duration, and show how option prices can be alculated using this model. We use ultra-high-frequency data for blue-chip companies to motivate a particular choice of...

This paper is an eclectic study of the uses of the Kalman filter in existing econometric literature. An effort is made to introduce the various extensions to the linear filter first developed by Kalman(1960) through examples of their uses in economics. The basic filter is first derived and then...

We discuss the Heston [Heston-1993] model with stochastic interest rates driven by Hull-White [Hull,White-1996] (HW) or Cox-Ingersoll-Ross [Cox, et al.-1985] (CIR) processes. A so-called volatility compensator is defined which guarantees that the Heston hybrid model with a non-zero correlation...