For modelling economic and financial time series, multivariate linear and nonlinear systems of equations have become a standard tool. These models can also be applied to non-stationary processes. However, the resulting finite-sample estimates may depend strongly on the specification of the model...

The convergence of estimators, e.g. maximum likelihood estimators, for increasing sample size is well understood in many cases. However, even when the rate of convergence of the estimator is known, practical application is hampered by the fact, that the estimator cannot always be obtained at...

Value at risk (VaR) has become a standard measure of portfolio risk over the last decade. It even became one of the corner stones in the Basel II accord about banks' equity requirements. Nevertheless, the practical application of the VaR concept suffers from two problems: how to estimate VaR and...

Non-linear modeling approaches, including Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) models, have attracted a great deal of attention over the last two decades. The empirical application of these models, however, is not always a straightforward task. In particular, parameter estimation and...

The great financial turmoil that started 2007 has brought bank regulation back into the political debate. There is talk about imposing new regulations on banks and other financial intermediaries. Yet, we are not convinced that it is completely understood how the existing regulation affects...

Copulas provide investors with tools to model the dependence structure of financial products. The choice of copulas plays an important role in successful copula applications. This paper discusses the copula selection problem for the so-called 'D-vine' decomposition from a perspective of the...

This paper discusses the application of an index tracking technique to mutual fund replication problems. By using a tracking error (TE) minimization method and two tactical rebalancing strategies (i.e. the calendar based strategy and the tolerance triggered strategy), a multi-period fund...

This paper proposes a clustering asset allocation scheme which provides better risk-adjusted portfolio performance than those obtained from traditional asset allocation approaches such as the equal weight strategy and the Markowitz minimum variance allocation. The clustering criterion used,...

Copulae provide investors with tools to model the dependency structure among financial products. The choice of copulae plays an important role in successful copula applications. However, selecting copulae usually relies on general goodness-of-fit (GoF) tests which are independent of the...