In the conduct of empirical macroeconomic research, unit root, cointegration, common cycle, and related test statistics are often constructed using logged data, even though there is often no clear reason, at least from an empirical perspective, why logs should be used rather than levels....

In recent years, numerous volatility-based derivative products have been engineered. This has led to interest in constructing conditional predictive densities and confidence intervals for integrated volatility. In this paper, we propose nonparametric kernel estimators of the aforementioned...

This chapter discusses estimation, specification testing, and model selection of predictive density models. In particular, predictive density estimation is briefly discussed, and a variety of different specification and model evaluation tests due to various authors including Christoffersen and...

This paper introduces bootstrap specification tests for diffusion processes. In the one-dimensional case, the proposed test is closest to the non parametric test introduced by Ait-Sahalia (1996), in the sense that both procedures determine whether the drift and variance components of a...

In this paper, we show the first order validity of the block bootstrap in the context of Kolmogorov type conditional distribution tests when there is dynamic misspecification and parameter estimation error. Our approach di®ers from the literature to date because we construct a bootstrap...

This paper introduces a new block bootstrap which is valid for recursive m-estimators, in the sense that its use suFFIces to mimic the limiting distribution of (1/P^.5)(SUM(t=R to T-1)(THETA-t-hat - THETA-plus)); where R denotes the length of the estimation period, P the number of recursively...

Mild factor loading instability, particularly if sufficiently independent across the different constituent variables, does not affect the estimation of the number of factors, nor subsequent estimation of the factors themselves (see e.g. Stock and Watson (2009)). This result does not hold in the...

In this chapter, we discuss the use of mixed frequency models and diffusion index approximation methods in the context of prediction. In particular, select recent specification and estimation methods are outlined, and an empirical illustration is provided wherein U.S. unemployment forecasts are...

The technique of using densities and conditional distributions to carry out consistent specification testing and model selection amongst multiple diffusion processes have received considerable attention from both financial theoreticians and empirical econometricians over the last two decades....

In recent years, an impressive body or research on predictive accuracy testing and model comparison has been published in the econometrics discipline. Key contributions to this literature include the paper by Diebold and Mariano (DM: 1995) that sets the groundwork for much of the subsequent work...