Some time ago, the Commerce Department changed the way it calculates real gross domestic product. In response to that change, this paper presents an update of a simple model that is used to predict the growth rate of current quarter real output based on available monthly data. After searching...

This paper derives a general class of intrinsic rational bubble solutions in a standard Lucas-type asset pricing model. I show that the rational bubble component of the price-dividend ratio can evolve as a geometric random walk without drift. The volatility of bubble innovations depends...

While most empirical analysis of prediction markets treats prices of binary options as predictions of the probability of future events, Manski (2004) has recently argued that there is little existing theory supporting this practice. We provide relevant analytic foundations, describing sufficient...

In September 2002, a new market in "Economic Derivatives" was launched allowing traders to take positions on future values of several macroeconomic data releases. We provide an initial analysis of the prices of these options. We find that market-based measures of expectations are similar to...

Interest in prediction markets has increased in the last decade, driven in part by the hope that these markets will prove to be valuable tools in forecasting, decisionmaking and risk management--in both the public and private sectors. This paper outlines five open questions in the literature,...

We find that covariance matrix forecasts for an international interest rate portfolio generated by a model that incorporates interest-rate level volatility effects perform best with respect to statistical loss functions. However, within a value-at-risk (VaR) framework, the relative performance...