Massively parallel desktop computing capabilities now well within the reach of individual academics modify the environment for posterior simulation in fundamental and potentially quite advantageous ways. But to fully exploit these benfits algorithms that conform to parallel computing...

While a great deal of attention has been focused on stochastic volatility in stock returns, there is strong evidence suggesting that return distributions have time-varying skewness and kurtosis as well. Under the risk-neutral measure, for example, this can be observed from variation across time...

Techniques for simulated maximum likelihood (SML) estimation, filtering, and assessing the fit of stochastic volatility models are examined. Both one- and two-factor models (with leverage effects) are considered. The techniques are computationally efficient, robust, straightforward to implement,...

Understanding both the dynamics of volatility as well as the shape of the distribution of returns conditional on the volatility state are important for many financial applications. A simple single-factor SV model appears to be sufficient to capture most of the dynamics; it is the shape of the...