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...

This paper employs a semiparametric procedure to estimate the diffusion process of short-term interest rates. The Monte Carlo study shows that the semiparametric approach produces more accurate volatility estimates than models that accommodate asymmetry, level effect and serial dependence in the...