Common approaches to test for the economic value of directional forecasts are based on the classical Chi-square test for independence, Fisher’s exact test or the Pesaran and Timmerman (1992) test for market timing. These tests are asymptotically valid for serially independent observations....

We propose a general class of Markov-switching-ARFIMA processes in order to combine strands of long memory and Markov-switching literature. Although the coverage of this class of models is broad, we show that these models can be easily estimated with the DLV algorithm proposed. This algorithm...

Measuring and modeling financial volatility is the key to derivative pricing, asset allocation and risk management.The recent availability of high-frequency data allows for refined methods in this field.In particular, more precise measures for the daily or lower frequency volatility can be...

It is investigated whether Euro-area variables can be forecast better based on synthetic time series for the pre-Euro period or by using just data from Germany for the pre-Euro period. Our forecast comparison is based on quarterly data for the period 1970Q1 - 2003Q4 for ten macroeconomic...

This paper studies the performance of nonparametric quantile regression as a tool to predict Value at Risk (VaR). The approach is flexible as it requires no assumptions on the form of return distributions. A monotonized double kernel local linear estimator is applied to estimate moderate (1%)...

Values of tranche spreads of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are driven by the joint default performance of the assets in the collateral pool. The dependence between the names in the portfolio mainly depends on current economic conditions. Therefore, a correlation implied from tranches...

Financial risk control has always been challenging and becomes now an even harder problem as joint extreme events occur more frequently. For decision makers and government regulators, it is therefore important to obtain accurate information on the interdependency of risk factors. Given a...

Population forecasts are crucial for many social, political and economic decisions. Official population projections rely in general on deterministic models which use different scenarios for future vital rates to indicate uncertainty. However, this technique shows substantial weak points such as...

It is commonly accepted that information is helpful if it can be exploited to improve a decision making process. In economics, decisions are often based on forecasts of up- or downward movements of the variable of interest. We point out that directional forecasts can provide a useful framework...