Unsupervised machine learning can interpret logarithmic returns and conditional volatility in commodity markets. k-means and hierarchical clustering can generate a financial ontology of markets for fuels, precious and base metals, and agricultural commodities. Manifold learning methods such as...

Machine-learning regression models lack the interpretability of their conventional linear counterparts. Tree- and forest-based models offer feature importances, a vector of probabilities indicating the impact of each predictive variable on a model’s results. This brief note describes how to...

Multivariable regression may be the most prevalent and useful task in social science. Empirical legal studies rely heavily on the ordinary least squares method. Conventional regression methods have attained credibility in court, but by no means do they dictate legal outcomes. Using the iconic...

Because there is no perfect gauge of inflation, the macroeconomic enterprise of indexing inflation ultimately dissolves into a choice among imperfect methodologies. But that choice still matters. This article will highlight the practical significance of methodological choices made in the course...

A suite of clustering methods, applied to the matrix of conditional volatility by trading days and individual assets or asset classes, can identify critical periods in markets for crude oil, refined fuels, and other commodities. Unsupervised machine learning provides a viable alternative to...

This article explores instinctive frames of human decision-making in environmental and resource economics. Higher-moment asset pricing combines rational, mathematically informed economic reasoning with psychological and biological insights. Leptokurtic blindness and skewness preference combine...

Demography affects the ability of countries to manage their debt levels and to make macroeconomic policy. By the same token, the demographic attributes of labor influence political decisions among nations, including international trade policy. In particular, the free movement of labor is a...

The Basel II and III accords prescribe distinct measures of market risk in the trading book of regulated financial institutions. Basel II has embraced value-at-risk (VaR) analysis, while Basel III has suggested that VaR be replaced by a different measure of risk, expected shortfall. These...

Quantitative finance traces its roots to modern portfolio theory. Despite the deficiencies of modern portfolio theory, mean-variance optimization nevertheless continues to form the basis for contemporary finance. The term "postmodern portfolio theory" expresses many of the theoretical advances...

Tales of northern exploitation of biological wealth and ethnobiological knowledge from the global south have become so frequent, so familiar, and so uniform that allegations of biopiracy now follow a predictable script. I come not to praise the biopiracy narrative, but to bury it. Most...