This dissertation consists of four stand-alone research papers which investigate various aspects of hedge fund performance and optimal portfolio choice. The first chapter of this thesis deals with the problem of unobserved hedge fund returns after delisting. It is a joint work with Prof. Jens...

MRQAP (Multiple Regression { Quadratic Assignment Procedure) tests are permutation tests for multiple regression coe±cients for data organized in square matrices instead of vectors. Such a data structure is typical in social network studies, where variables indicate some type of relation...

Doctor of Philosophy

In many applications of graphical models arising in computer vision, the hidden variables of interest are most naturally specified by continuous, non-Gaussian distributions. There exist inference algorithms for discrete approximations to these continuous distributions, but for the...

Abstract only: Today’s data analysts and modellers are in the luxurious position of being able to more closely describe, estimate, predict and infer about complex systems of interest, thanks to ever more powerful computational methods but also wider ranges of modelling distributions. Mixture...

We study model selection strategies based on penalized empirical loss minimization. We point out a tight relationship between error estimation and data-based complexity penalization: any good error estimate may be converted into a data-based penalty function and the performance of the estimate...

In this paper we examine several approaches to detecting changes in the adjustment coefficients in cointegrated VARs. We adopt recursive and rolling techniques as mis-specification tests for the detection of non-constancy and the estimation of the breakpoints. We find that inspection of the...

Florax et al. [Florax, R.J.G.M., Folmer, H., Rey, S.J., 2003. Specification searches in spatial econometrics: the relevance of Hendry's methodology. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 33, 557–579] undertook a simulation study designed to assess the properties of various selection strategies...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Life insurance and pension funds offer a wide range of products that are invested in a mix ofassets. These portfolios (II), underlying the products, are rebalanced back to predetermined fixedproportions on a regular basis. This is done by selling the better performing assets...

A new methodology is proposed for the analysis of generation capacity investment in a deregulated market environment. This methodology proposes to make the investment appraisal using a probabilistic framework. The probabilistic production simulation (PPC) algorithm is used to compute the...