Volatility clustering and fat tails are prominently observed in financial markets. Here, we analyze the underlying mechanisms of three agent-based models explaining these stylized facts in terms of market instabilities and compare them on empirical grounds. To this end, we first develop a...

GARCH Models have become a workhouse in volatility forecasting of financial and monetary market time series. In this article, we assess the small sample properties in estimation and the performance in volatility forecasting of four competing distribution free methods, including quasi-maximum...