Der seit der Finanzkrise steile Anstieg der Zinsdifferenzen zwischen europäischen Staatsanleihen bringt mehrere Mitgliedsländer der europäischen Währungsunion (EWU) unter erhebliche Refinanzierungsschwierigkeiten und wirft die Frage nach den Ursachen auf. Dieser Bericht fasst die Ergebnisse...

This paper discusses nonparametric kernel regression with the regressor being a d-dimensional ß-null recurrent process in presence of conditional heteroscedasticity. We show that the mean function estimator is consistent with convergence rate p n(T)hd, where n(T) is the number of regenerations...

This paper employs a semiparametric procedure to estimate the diffusion process of short-term interest rate. This method is compared in its ability to capture the dynamics of short rate volatility to a class of one-factor diffusion models where the conditional variance is serially correlated and...

Macroeconomists have long been concerned with the causal effects of monetary policy. When the identification of causal effects is based on a selection-on-observables assumption, non-causality amounts to the conditional independence of outcomes and policy changes. This paper develops a...

This paper challenges the assumption that the inflation process within the euro area is well-described by a linear Phillips curve and investigates in a nonparametric framework how inflation is sensitive to output growth. An asymmetric output-inflation trade-off is pointed out in the euro area at...

In this paper we consider a novel procedure for forecasting the US yield curve by using the methodology of nonparametric kernel estimation of functional data (NP-FDA). Within this approach, each element of the sample is a monthly yield curve, evaluated at points corresponding to maturities. In...

The traditional approach to bond portfolio immunization usually assumes that the possible future changes of the term structure of interest rates lie within a suitable parametric class of functions. The quantities of interest are the sensitivities of the portfolio value with respect to these...

The term structure of interest rates is used to price defaultable bonds and credit derivatives, as well as to infer the quality of bonds for risk management purposes. We introduce a model that jointly estimates term structures by means of a Bayesian hierarchical model with a prior probability...

Business climate indicators are used to receive early signals for turning points in the general business cycle. Therefore methods for the detection of turning points in time series are required. Estimations of slopes of a smooth component in the data can be calculated with local polynomial...

In this paper bilateral models formalizing monthly growth of US imports and exports are employed to investigate the potential of nonlinear relationships linking exchange rate uncertainty and trade growth. Parametric linear and nonlinear as well as semiparametric time series models are evaluated...