It is investigated whether euro area variables can be forecast better based on synthetic time series for the pre-euro period or by using just data from Germany for the pre-euro period. Our forecast comparison is based on quarterly data for the period 1970Q1-2003Q4 for 10 macroeconomic variables....

Many contemporaneously aggregated variables have stochastic aggregation weights. We compare different forecasts for such variables, including univariate forecasts of the aggregate, a multivariate forecast of the aggregate that uses information from the disaggregated components, a forecast which...

Previous euro area money demand studies have used aggregated national time series data from the countries participating in the European Monetary Union (EMU). However, aggregation may be problematic because macroeconomic convergence processes have taken place in the countries of interest....

type="main" xml:id="obes12053-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>We suggest to use a factor model based backdating procedure to construct historical Euro-area macroeconomic time series data for the pre-Euro period. We argue that this is a useful alternative to standard contemporaneous aggregation methods. The...</p>

The implied volatility of an option as a function of strike price and time to maturity forms a volatility surface. Traders price according to the dynamics of this high dimensional surface. Recent developments that employ semiparametric models approximate the implied volatility surface (IVS) in a...

We empirically analyze Taylor-type equations for short-term interest rates in the United Kingdom using quarterly data from 1970Q1 to 2006Q2. Starting from strong evidence against a simple linear Taylor rule, we model nonlinearities using logistic smooth transition regression (LSTR) models. The...