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...

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....