We introduce a new method for the estimation of discount functions, yield curves and forward curves from government issued coupon bonds. Our approach is non-parametric and does not assume particular functional form for the discount function although we do show how to impose various restrictions...

For over a decade, nonparametric modelling has been successfully applied to study nonlinear structures in financial time series. It is well known that the usual nonparametric models often have less than satisfactory performance when dealing with more than one lag. When the mean has an additive...

We examine a new general class of hazard rate models for survival data, containing a parametric and a nonparametric component. Both can be a mix of a time effect and (possibly time-dependent) marker of covariate effects. A number of well-known models are special cases. In a counting process...

The availability of many variables with predictive power makes their selection in a regression context difficult. This study considers robust and understandable low-dimensional estimators as building blocks to improve overall predictive power by optimally combining these building blocks. Our new...

We carry out some analysis of the daily data on the number of new cases and number of new deaths by (191) countries as reported to the European CDC. We work with a quadratic time trend model applied to the log of new cases for each country. This seems to accurately describe the trajectory of the...