How common and how persistent are turbulent periods? We address these questions by developing and applying a dynamic dependence framework. In order to answer the first question we estimate an unconditional mixture model of normal copulas, based on both economic and econometric justification. In...

We introduce a new method to price American-style options on underlying investments governed by stochastic volatility (SV) models. The method does not require the volatility process to be observed. Instead, it exploits the fact that the optimal decision functions in the corresponding dynamic...

This paper proposes a novel positive nonparametric estimator of the conditional variance function without reliance on logarithmic or other transformations. The estimator is based on an empirical likelihood modification of conventional local level nonparametric regression applied to squared mean...

Econometric estimation using simulation techniques, such as the efficient method of moments, may betime consuming. The use of ordinary matrix programming languages such as Gauss, Matlab, Ox or S-plus will very often cause extra delay. For the Efficient Method of Moments implemented to...

We demonstrate that the parameters controlling skewness and kurtosis in popular equity return models estimated at daily frequency can be obtained almost as precisely as if volatility is observable by simply incorporating the strong information content of realized volatility measures extracted...

When estimating integrated volatilities based on high-frequency data, simplifying assumptions are usually imposed on the relationship between the observation times and the price process. In this paper, we establish a central limit theorem for the Realized Volatility in a general endogenous time...

We introduce a new efficient importance sampler for nonlinear non-Gaussian state space models. We propose a general and efficient likelihood evaluation method for this class of models via the combination of numerical and Monte Carlo integration methods. Our methodology explores the idea that...

We introduce a new efficient importance sampler for nonlinear non-Gaussian state space models. We propose a general and efficient likelihood evaluation method for this class of models via the combination of numerical and Monte Carlo integration methods. Our methodology explores the idea that...

This paper studies the contemporaneous relationship between S&P 500 index returns and log-increments of the market volatility index (VIX) via a nonparametric copula method. Specifically, we propose a conditional dependence index to investigate how the dependence between the two series varies...

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...