In this paper, we introduce a semi-parametric Bayesian methodology based on the proportional hazard model that assumes that the baseline hazard function is constant over segments but, by contrast to what is usually assumed in the literature, with the periods at which the function changes not...

Understanding the dynamics of interest rates and the term structure has important implications for issues as diverse as real economic activity, monetary policy, pricing of interest rate derivative securities and public debt financing. Our paper follows a longstanding tradition of using factor...

Maximum likelihood estimation and goodness-of-fit techniques are used within a competing risks framework to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of hazard, density, and survivor functions for randomly right-censored variables. Goodness-of- fit techniques are used to fit distributions to the crude...

For random elements X and Y (e.g. vectors) a complete characterization of their association is given in terms of an odds ratio function. The main result establishes for any odds ratio function and any pre-specified marginals the unique existence of a corresponding joint distribution (the joint...

Houses are traded at relatively infrequent times and can hardly be standardized: two equally built and furnished houses may command widely different prices in the market on account of their different location or even orientation. Clearly, the computation of an index such as Laspeyres’ cannot...