Theoretical results on the properties of forecasts obtained using singular spectrum analysis are presented in this paper. The mean squared forecast error is derived under broad regularity conditions, and it is shown that the forecasts obtained in practice will converge to their population...

A general parametric framework is developed for pricing S&P500 options. Skewness and leptokurtosis in stock returns as well as time-varying volatility are priced. The parametric pricing model nests the Black-Scholes model and can explain volatility smiles and skews in stock options. The data...

When the unobservable Markov chain in a hidden Markov model is stationary the marginal distribution of the observations is a finite mixture with the number of terms equal to the number of the states of the Markov chain. This suggests estimating the number of states of the unobservable Markov...

The local linear trend and global linear trend models embody extreme assumptions about trends. According to the local linear trend formulation the level and growth rate are allowed to rapidly adapt to changes in the data path. On the other hand, the Glaobal linear trend model makes no allowance...

We evaluate the performance of various methods for forecasting tourism demand. The data used include 380 monthly series, 427 quarterly series and 530 yearly series, all supplied to us by tourism bodies or by academics from previous tourism forecasting studies. The forecasting methods implemented...

We discuss and compare measures of accuracy of univariate time series forecasts. The methods used in the M-competition and the M3-competition, and many of the measures recommended by previous authors on this topic, are found to be inadequate, and many of them are degenerate in commonly occurring...

Statistical models can play a crucial role in decision making. Traditional model validation tests typically make restrictive parametric assumptions about the model under the null and the alternative hypotheses. The majority of these tests examine one type of change at a time. This paper presents...