Much of the trading activity in Equity markets is directed to brokerage houses. In exchange they provide so-called quot;soft dollarsquot; which basically are amounts spent in quot;researchquot; for identifying profitable trading opportunities. Soft dollars represent about USD 1 out of every USD...

We derive nonparametric tests of symmetry using asymmetric kernels with either shrinking or fixed bandwidths. We show how to extend the approach to examine conditional symmetry by deriving conditions under which our tests are applicable to residuals from semiparametric models with a...

We develop a test of equality between two dependence structures estimated through empirical copulas. We provide inference for independent or paired samples. The multiplier central limit theorem is used for calculating p-values of the Crameacute;r-von Mises test statistic. Finite sample properties...

Using properties of the cdf of a random variable defined as a saddle-type point of a real valued continuous stochastic process, we derive first-order asymptotic properties of tests for stochastic spanning w.r.t. a stochastic dominance relation. First, we define the concept of Markowitz...

We develop and implement methods for determining whether introducing new securities or relaxing investment constraints improves the investment opportunity set for prospect investors. We formulate a new testing procedure for prospect spanning for two nested portfolio sets based on subsampling and...

Macroeconomic time series often involve a threshold effect in their ARMA representation, and exhibit long memory features. In this paper we introduce a new class of threshold ARFIMA models to account for this. The threshold effect is introduced in the autoregressive and/or the fractional...

We study the robustness of block resampling procedures for time series. We first derive a set of formulas to characterize their quantile breakdown point. For the moving block bootstrap and the subsampling, we find a very low quantile breakdown point. A similar robustness problem arises in...

Testing procedures for predictive regressions with lagged autoregressive variables imply a suboptimal inference in presence of small violations of ideal assumptions. We propose a novel testing framework resistant to such violations, which is consistent with nearly integrated regressors and...

We build a simple diagnostic criterion for approximate factor structure in large panel datasets. Given observable factors, the criterion checks whether the errors are weakly cross-sectionally correlated or share at least one unobservable common factor (interactive effects). A general version...

We revisit the apparent historical success of technical trading rules on daily prices of the DJIA index from 1897 to 2011, and use the False Discovery Rate as a new approach to data snooping. The advantage of the FDR over existing methods is that it selects more outperforming rules which allows...