his paper attempts to predict the bear conditions on the US stock market. To this aim we elaborate simple predictive regressions, static and dynamic binary choice (BCM) as well as Markov-switching models. The in- and out-of-sample prediction ability is evaluated and we compare the forecasting...

We propose a novel nonparametric method to distinguish between recessions vs. depressions and expansions vs. booms in aggregate economic activity. Four depression and

We propose a nonparametric test that distinguishes 'depressions' and 'booms' from ordinary recessions and expansions. Depressions and booms are defined as coming from another underlying process than recessions and expansions. We find four depressions and booms in the NBER business cycle between...

In this paper, we study the degree of business cycle synchronization by means of a small sample version of the Harding and Pagan's ["Journal of Econometrics" (2006) Vol. 132, pp. 59-79] Generalized Method of Moment test. We show that the asymptotic version of the test gets increasingly distorted...

This paper implements estimation and testing procedures for comovements of stock market "cycles" or "phases" in Asia. We extend the Harding and Pagan [Harding, D., Pagan, A.P., 2006. Synchronization of cycles. Journal of Econometrics 132 (1), 59-79] test for strong multivariate...

A power law typically governs the tail decay of financial returns but the constancy of the so-called tail index which dictates the tail decay remains relatively unexplored. We study the finite sample properties of some recently proposed endogenous tests for structural change in the tail index....

Using a limiting approach to portfolio credit risk, we obtain analytic expressions for the tail behavior of credit losses. To capture the co-movements in defaults over time, we assume that defaults are triggered by a general, possibly non-linear, factor model involving both systematic and...

Using a limiting approach to portfolio credit risk, we obtain analyticexpressions for the tail behavior of the distribution of credit losses. We showthat in many cases of practical interest the distribution of these losses haspolynomial ('fat') rather than exponential ('thin') tails. Our...

We analyze the interdependency between different financial markets by using multivariate extreme value theory. This permits one to focus on the occurrence of simultaneous financial market crises, whereas standard co-variance analysis is less suitable for studying extreme interdependencies. The...