This paper presents a canonical, econometric model of contagion and investigates the conditions under which contagion can be distinguished from inter-dependence. In a two-country (market) setup it is shown that for a range of fundamentals the solution is not unique, and for sufficiently large...

We develop novel forecasting methods for panel data with heterogeneous parameters and examine them together with existing approaches. We conduct a systematic comparison of their predictive accuracy in settings with different cross-sectional (N) and time (T) dimensions and varying degrees of...

This paper considers the issue of forecasting financial fragility of banks and insurances using a panel data set of performance indicators, namely distance-to- default, taking unobserved common factors into account. We show that common factors are important in the performance of banks and...

In this paper we discuss tests for residual cross section dependence in nonlinear panel data models. The tests are based on average pair-wise residual correlation coefficients. In nonlinear models, the definition of the residual is ambiguous and we consider two approaches: deviations of the...

This paper considers forecast averaging when the same model is used but estimation is carried out over different estimation windows. It develops theoretical results for random walks when their drift and/or volatility are subject to one or more structural breaks. It is shown that compared to...

This paper conducts a broad-based comparison of iterated and direct multi-step forecasting approaches applied to both univariate and multivariate models. Theoretical results and Monte Carlo simulations suggest that iterated forecasts dominate direct forecasts when estimation error is a...

In this paper we discuss tests for residual cross section dependence in nonlinear panel data models. The tests are based on average pair-wise residual correlation coefficients. In nonlinear models, the definition of the residual is ambiguous and we consider two approaches: deviations of the...

We propose a near optimal test for structural breaks of unknown timing when the purpose of the analysis is to obtain accurate forecasts under square error loss. A bias-variance trade-off exists under square forecast error loss, which implies that small structural breaks should be ignored. We...

This paper provides estimates of COVID-19 effective reproduction numbers and explains their evolution for selected European countries since the start of the pandemic taking account of changes in voluntary and government mandated social distancing, incentives to comply, vaccination and the...

This paper is concerned with the problem of variable selection when the marginal effects of signals on the target variable as well as the correlation of the covariates in the active set are allowed to vary over time, without committing to any particular model of parameter instabilities. It poses...