Starting from the Merton framework for firm defaults, we provide the analytics and robustness of the relationship between default correlations. We show that loans with higher default probabilities will not only have higher variances but also higher correlations between loans. As a consequence,...

The Internal Ratings Based (IRB) approach for capital determination is one of the cornerstones in the proposed revision of the Basel Committee rules for bank regulation. We evaluate the IRB approach using historical business loan portfolio data from a major Swedish bank for the period 1994 to...

Regions vary strongly according to the participation of firms in R&D activity.By linking data on R&D activity at thefirm level with GIS based data on economic, and other locationfeatures of zoneswe are able to investigate the impactof local factors on R&D involvement for various types of...

In travel surveys most respondents apply rounding of departure andarrival times to multiples of 5, 15 and 30minutes: in the annual Dutch travel survey about 85-95 percent of allreported times are 'round' ones. We estimaterounding models for departure and arrival times. The model allows oneto...

In this work we consider modeling the past volatilities through a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model using the Bayesian approach. Asymmetries in the shocks are accommodated by smooth transition models for the variance. We discuss problems related to the...

Determining the exchange rate pass-through on inflation is a necessity for central banks as well as for firms and households. This is an apparently easy and intuitive task, but it faces high complexity and uncertainty. This paper examines the short and long-term impact of an exchange rate shock...

We identify structural vector autoregressions using narrative sign restrictions. Narrative sign restrictions constrain the structural shocks and the historical decomposition around key historical events, ensuring that they agree with the established narrative account of these episodes. Using...