Stochastic di®erential equations (SDEs) are　central to much of modern finance theory and have been widely used to model the behaviour of key variables such as the　instantaneous short-term interest rate, asset prices, asset returns and their volatility.　The explanatory and/or predictive...

Maximum-likelihood estimates of the parameters of stochastic differential equations are consistent and asymptotically efficient, but unfortunately difficult to obtain if a closed-form expression for the transitional probability density function of the process is not available. As a result, a...