Estimation and Testing of Dynamic Models with Generalised Hyperbolic Innovations

We analyse the Generalised Hyperbolic distribution as a model for fat tails and asymmetries in multivariate conditionally heteroskedastic dynamic regression models. We provide a standardised version of this distribution, obtain analytical expressions for the log-likelihood score, and explain how to evaluate the information matrix. In addition, we derive tests for the null hypotheses of multivariate normal and Student t innovations, and decompose them into skewness and kurtosis components, from which we obtain more powerful one-sided versions. Finally, we present an empirical illustration with UK sectorial stock returns, which suggests that their conditional distribution is asymmetric and leptokurtic.