Paul De Grauwe's Eurozone fragility hypothesis states that sovereign debt markets in a monetary union without a lender-of-last-resort are vulnerable to self-fulfilling dynamics fuelled by pessimistic investor sentiment that can trigger default. We test this contention by applying an eclectic...

This paper tackles the design of an optimal early warning system (EWS) for sovereign default from two distinct angles: the choice of the econometric methodology and the evaluation of the EWS itself. It compares K-means clustering of macrodata, a logit regression for macrodata, a logit regression...

This paper explores the interest rate transmission mechanism using a broad disaggregated sample of UK deposit and credit products. For a large proportion of rates the adjustment speed is time-varying, switching among four regimes according to the direction of the policy rate and its effect on...

This paper investigates the finite-sample behaviour of sovereign credit migration estimators and analyzes the properties of the rating process. Through bootstrap simulations, we compare a discrete multinomial estimator and two continuous hazard rate methods which differ in that one neglects...

This paper utilizes two different classification techniques to explore issues in the development of an early warning system for sovereign default. Specifically, the paper develops K-means clustering and logit models to illustrate how the optimal choice of parameters, such as assignment rule of...

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the relative ability of three information sets --- daily trading volume, intraday returns and overnight returns --- to predict equity volatility. We investigate the extent to which statistical accuracy of one-day-ahead forecasts translates into...