In wildlife population studies one of the main goals is estimating the population abundance. Line transect sampling is a well established methodology for this purpose. The usual approach for estimating the density or the size of the population of interest is to assume a particular model for the...

We develop inferential tools for latent factor analysis in short panels. The pseudo maximum likelihood setting under a large cross-sectional dimension n and a fixed time series dimension T relies on a diagonal T x T covariance matrix of the errors without imposing sphericity or Gaussianity. We...

In this paper a set of ten different single-equation models of household energy demand is being analyzed. These simple models are being derived by the imposition of linear parameter restrictions on a fairly general autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model in log-linear form. Household energy...

This paper analyzes the higher-order properties of nested pseudo-likelihood (NPL) estimators and their practical implementation for parametric discrete Markov decision models in which the probability distribution is defined as a fixed point. We propose a new NPL estimator that can achieve...

This paper presents a general statistical framework for estimation, testing, and comparison of asset pricing models using the unconstrained distance measure of Hansen and Jagannathan (1997). The limiting results cover both linear and nonlinear models that could be correctly specified or...

We provide an in-depth analysis of the theoretical and statistical properties of the Hansen-Jagannathan (HJ) distance that incorporates a no-arbitrage constraint. We show that for stochastic discount factors (SDF) that are spanned by the returns on the test assets, testing the equality of HJ...

In systems of variables with a specified or already identified cointegrating rank, stationarity of component variates can be tested by a simple restriction test. The implied decision is often in conflict with the outcome of unit root tests on the same variables. Using a framework of Bayes...

Tests for relative predictive accuracy have become a widespread addendum to forecast comparisons. Many empirical research reports conclude that the difference between the entertained forecasting models is 'insignificant'. This paper collects arguments that cast doubt on the usefulness of...

The empirical joint distribution of return-pairs on stock indices displays high tail-dependence in the lower tail and low tail-dependence in the upper tail. The presence of tail-dependence is not compatible with the assumption of (conditional) joint normality. The presence of asymmetric-tail...

This paper questions traditional approaches for testing the day-of-the-week effect on stock returns. We propose an alternative approach based on the closure test principle introduced by Marcus, Peritz and Gabriel (1976), which has become very popular in Biometrics and Medical Statistics. We test...