This paper focuses on finding starting-values for the estimation of Vector STAR models. Based on a Monte Carlo study, different procedures are evaluated. Their performance is assessed with respect to model fit and computational effort. I employ (i) grid search algorithms and (ii) heuristic...

In econometric modelling the choice of relevant variables is of crucial importance for the Interpretation of the results. In many cases it is based on some a priori knowledge from economic theory and a rather heuristic procedure for determining other influential variables sometimes based on an...

In this paper the genetic algorithm is described, applications in the field of statistics are indicated and it is applied to the estimation of the parameters of a Johnson-type distribution. The convergence behaviour is analyzed with respect to the mutation probability, the kind of mutations and...