We consider here the problem of computing the mean vector and covariance matrix for a conditional normal distribution, considering especially a sequence of problems where the conditioning variables are changing. The sweep operator provides one simple general approach that is easy to implement...

The paper develops an approach for analyzing the dynamics of a nonlinear time series that is represented by a nonparametric estimate of its one-step ahead conditional density. The approach entails examination of conditional moment profiles corresponding to certain shocks; a conditional moment...

This dissertation consists of three related chapters that study financial market volatility,jumps and the economic factors behind them. Each of the chapters analyzes adifferent aspect of this problem.The first chapter examines tests for jumps based on recent asymptotic results.Monte Carlo...

estimates and examines the empirical plausibility of asset pricing models that attempt to explain features of financial markets such as the size of the equity premium and the volatility of the stock market. In one model, the long-run risks (LRR) model of Bansal and Yaron, low-frequency...

describes the use of the Gallant-Tauchen efficient method of moments (EMM) technique for diagnostic checking of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) estimated from financial market data. The EMM technique is a simulation-based method that uses the score function of an auxiliary model as the...

A common model for security price dynamics is the continuous-time stochastic volatility model. For this model, Hull and White (1987) show that the price of a derivative claim is the conditional expectation of the Black-Scholes price with the forward integrated variance replacing the...

The contribution of generalized method of moments (Hansen and Singleton, 1982) was to allow frequentist inference regarding the parameters of a nonlinear structural model without having to solve the model. Provided there were no latent variables. The contribution of this paper is the same. With...

We developed a model-free Bayesian extraction procedure for the stochastic discount factor under a yield curve prior. Previous methods in the literature directly or indirectly use some particular parametric asset-pricing models such as with long-run risks or habits as the prior. Here, in...

This paper summarizes comments at the Panel Discussion on Calibration at the Seventh World Congress of the Econometric Society, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, 22-29 August 1995.