This article provides a new test for sphericity of the covariance matrix of a d-dimensional multinormal population X Nd. This test is applicable if the sample size, n + 1, and d both go to infinity while d/n ! y 2 (0,1), provided that the limits of tr(k)/d, k = 1, . . . , 8, are finite. The main...

A new procedure, called DD-procedure, is developed to solve the problem of classifying d-dimensional objects into q ≥ 2 classes. The procedure is completely nonparametric; it uses q-dimensional depth plots and a very efficient algorithm for discrimination analysis in the depth space [0, 1]q ....

While modern portfolio theory grounds on the trade-off between portfolio return and portfolio variance to determine the optimal investment decision, postmodern portfolio theory uses downside risk measures instead of the variance. Prominent examples are given by the risk measures Value-at-Risk...

In credit default prediction models, the need to deal with time-varying covariates often arises. For instance, in the context of corporate default prediction a typical approach is to estimate a hazard model by regressing the hazard rate on time-varying covariates like balance sheet or stock...

We introduce a measure of diversification for portfolios comprising d risky assets. This measure relates the smallest possible return variance among these d assets to the overall portfolio return variance, yielding the portion of non-diversifiable risk. In the context of normally distributed...

The work at hand tries to identify factors that explain accidents on German Autobahn connectors. To find these factors the empirical study makes use of count data models. The findings are based on a set of 197 ramps, which we classified into three distinct types of ramps. For these ramps...

In small samples and especially in the case of small true default probabilities, standard approaches to credit default probability estimation have certain drawbacks. Most importantly, standard estimators tend to underestimate the true default probability which is of course an undesirable...

The specification of prior parameters is a common practical problem when implementing Bayesian approaches to portfolio optimization. The precision parameter of the prior on the expected asset returns reflects the confidence of the investor in the prior knowledge. Within the framework of the...

Linear optimization problems are investigated whose parameters are uncertain. We apply coherent distortion risk measures to capture the violation of restrictions. Such a model turns out to be appropriate for many applications and, principally, for the mean-risk portfolio selection problem. Each...

It is well known that the correlation between financial series varies over time. Here, the forecasting performance of different time-varying correlation models is compared for cross-country correlations of weekly G5 and daily European stock market indices. In contrast to previous studies only...