Inaugural -Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Wirtschafts -und Sozialwissenschaften der Wirtschafts -und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Christian -Albrechts -Universität zu Kiel The objective of this study is the development and application of models for financial...

Real risk-free interest rates have trended down over the past 30 years. Puzzlingly in light of this decline, (1) the return on private capital has remained stable or even increased, creating an increasing wedge with safe interest rates; (2) stock market valuation ratios have increased only...

In this paper, we review the most common specifications of discrete-time stochastic volatility (SV) models and illustrate the major principles of corresponding Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based statistical inference. We provide a hands-on ap proach which is easily implemented in empirical...