In this paper, a New-Keynesian DSGE model for a small open economy integrated in a monetary union is developed and estimated for the Portuguese economy, using a Bayesian approach. Estimates for some key structural parameters are obtained and a set of exercises exploring the model's statistical...

A method to price American-style option contracts in a limited information framework is introduced. The pricing methodology is based on sequential Monte Carlo techniques, as presented in Doucet, de Freitas, and Gordon's text "Sequential Monte Carlo Methods in Practice", and the least-squares...

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...

There has been some work, e.g.Carriere (1998), Valdez (2000b), and Valdez (2001), leading to the development of statistical models in understanding the mortality pattern of terminated policies. However, there is a scant literature on the empirical evidence of the true nature of the relationship...

For several years now, there continues to be attention in the modeling of insurance and other similar type of risks, such as the risk of credit default, to incorporate the presence of dependencies. Some of the early papers appearing in the literature demonstrate that for a typical portfolio of...

This paper describes a modelling methodology for multivariate stochastic processes. The concept of multiple causality is discussed and a procedure to detect multiple causality is suggested. The data of a major Canadian supermarket is analyzed and a multivariate autoregressive model for this...

A factor-augmented vector auto-regressive (FAVAR) model is defined by a VAR equation that captures lead-lag correlations among a set of observed variables X and latent factors F, and a calibration equation that relates another set of observed variables Y with F and X. The latter equation is used...

In this paper we present a new method of approximating the risk neutral density (RND) from option prices based on the C-type Gram-Charlier series expansion (GCSE) of a probability density function. The exponential form of this type of GCSE guarantees that it will always give positive values of...

As I document using evidence from a journal data repository that I manage, the datasets used in empirical work are getting larger. When we use very large datasets, it can be dangerous to rely on standard methods for statistical inference. In addition, we need to worry about computational issues....

Though the profound importance of the market risk premium to finance is unquestioned, its actual measurement has been problematic for both academics and analysts alike. What exactly is the magnitude of the ex post market risk premium? What is its relationship with the expected or ex ante...