We explore the relationship between financial reforms and income inequality using a panel of 29 countries over 1975-2005. We extend panel unit root tests to allow for the presence of some financial-reform covariates and further suggest an associated but novel, semi-parametric approach. Results...

We explore the relationship between financial reforms and income inequality using a panel of 29 countries over 1975-2005. We extend panel unit root tests to allow for the presence of some financial-reform covariates and further suggest an associated but novel, semi-parametric approach. Results...

Following Shimko (1993), a large amount of research has evolved around the problem of extracting risk neutral densities from options prices by interpolating the Balck-Scholes implied volatility smile. Some of the methods recently proposed use variants of the cubic spline. Thesee methods have the...

This paper develops a rigorous econometric framework to investigate the structure of codependence between random variables and to test whether it changes over time. Our approach is based on the computation - over both a test and a benchmark period - of the conditional probability that a random...

Suppose a fund manager uses predictors in changing port-folio allocations over time. How does predictability translate into portfolio decisions? To answer this question we derive a new model within the Bayesian framework, where managers are assumed to modulate the systematic risk in part by...

A statistical decision rule incorporating judgment does not perform worse than a judgmental decision with a given probability. Under model misspecification, this probability is unknown. The best model is the least misspecified, as it is the one whose probability of underperforming the judgmental...

Two approaches are considered to incorporate judgment in DSGE models. First, Bayesian estimation indirectly imposes judgment via priors on model parameters, which are then mapped into a judgmental interest rate decision. Standard priors are shown to be associated with highly unrealistic...

This paper examines which measures of financial conditions are informative about the tail risks to output growth in the euro area. The Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS) is more informative than indicators focusing on narrower segments of financial markets or their simple aggregation...

A decision maker tests whether the gradient of the loss function evaluated at a judgmental decision is zero. If the test does not reject, the action is the judgmental decision. If the test rejects, the action sets the gradient equal to the boundary of the rejection region. This statistical...

The rank of the Hankel matrix, corresponding to a system transfer function, is equal to the order of its minimal state space realization. The computation of the rank of the Hankel matrix is complicated by the fact that its block elements are rarely given exactly but are estimated instead. In...