http://repub.eur.nl/res/col/1946/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39847/ 2014-04-15T00:00:00Z Accurate prediction of risk measures such as Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) requires precise estimation of the tail of the predictive distribution. Two novel concepts are introduced that offer a specific focus on this part of the predictive density: the censored posterior, a posterior in which the likelihood is replaced by the censored likelihood; and the censored predictive likelihood, which is used for Bayesian Model Averaging. We perform extensive experiments involving simulated and empirical data. Our results show the ability of these new approaches to outperform the standard posterior and traditional Bayesian Model Averaging techniques in applications of Value-at-Risk prediction in GARCH models. Gatarek, L.T. Hoogerheide, L.F. Honing, K. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39848/ 2013-04-19T00:00:00Z This paper develops a testing framework for comparing the predictive accuracy of copula-based multivariate density forecasts, focusing on a specific part of the joint distribution. The test is framed in the context of the Kullback-Leibler Information Criterion, but using (out-of-sample) conditional likelihood and censored likelihood in order to focus the evaluation on the region of interest. Monte Carlo simulations document that the resulting test statistics have satisfactory size and power properties in small samples. In an empirical application to daily exchange rate returns we find evidence that the dependence structure varies with the sign and magnitude of returns, such that different parametric copula models achieve superior forecasting performance in different regions of the support. Our analysis highlights the importance of allowing for lower and upper tail dependence for accurate forecasting of common extreme appreciation and depreciation of different currencies. Diks, C.G.H. Panchenko, V. Sokolinskiy, O. Dijk, D.J.C. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39841/ 2013-04-11T00:00:00Z It is common practice to evaluate fixed-event forecast revisions in macroeconomics by regressing current forecast revisions on one-period lagged forecast revisions. Under weak-form (forecast) efficiency, the correlation between the current and one-period lagged revisions should be zero. The empirical findings in the literature suggest that this null hypothesis of zero correlation is rejected frequently, where the correlation can be either positive (which is widely interpreted in the literature as “smoothing”) or negative (which is widely interpreted as “over-reacting”). We propose a methodology to interpret such non-zero correlations in a straightforward and clear manner. Our approach is based on the assumption that numerical forecasts can be decomposed into both an econometric model and random expert intuition. We show that the interpretation of the sign of the correlation between the current and one-period lagged revisions depends on the process governing intuition, and the current and lagged correlations between intuition and news (or shocks to the numerical forecasts). It follows that the estimated non-zero correlation cannot be given a direct interpretation in terms of smoothing or over-reaction. Chang, C.L. Bruijn, B. de Franses, Ph.H.B.F. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39842/ 2013-04-11T00:00:00Z We quantify the causal effect of foreign investment on total factor productivity (TFP) using a new global firm-level database. Our identification strategy relies on exploiting the difference in the amount of foreign investment by financial and industrial investors and simultaneously controlling for unobservable firm and country-sector-year factors. Using our well identified firm level estimates for the direct effect of foreign ownership on acquired firms and for the spillover effects on domestic firms, we calculate the aggregate impact of foreign investment on country-level productivity growth and find it to be very small. Fons-Rosen, C. Kalemli-Ozcan, S. Sorensen, B.E. Villegas-Sanchez, C. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39840/ 2013-04-08T00:00:00Z This paper presents the Matlab package DeCo (Density Combination) which is based on the paper by Billio et al. (2013) where a constructive Bayesian approach is presented for combining predictive densities originating from different models or other sources of information. The combination weights are time-varying and may depend on past predictive forecasting performances and other learning mechanisms. The core algorithm is the function DeCo which applies banks of parallel Sequential Monte Carlo algorithms to filter the time-varying combination weights. The DeCo procedure has been implemented both for standard CPU computing and for Graphical Process Unit (GPU) parallel computing. For the GPU implementation we use the Matlab parallel computing toolbox and show how to use General Purposes GPU computing almost effortless. This GPU implementation comes with a speed up of the execution time up to seventy times compared to a standard CPU Matlab implementation on a multicore CPU. We show the use of the package and the computational gain of the GPU version, through some simulation experiments and empirical applications. Casarin, R. Grassi, S. Ravazzolo, F. Dijk, H.K. van http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39434/ 2013-03-25T00:00:00Z Many macroeconomic forecasts and forecast updates like those from IMF and OECD typically involve both a model component, which is replicable, as well as intuition, which is non-replicable. Intuition is expert knowledge possessed by a forecaster. If forecast updates are progressive, forecast updates should become more accurate, on average, as the actual value is approached. Otherwise, forecast updates would be neutral. The paper proposes a methodology to test whether macroeconomic forecast updates are progressive, where the interaction between model and intuition is explicitly taken into account. The data set for the empirical analysis is for Taiwan, where we have three decades of quarterly data available of forecasts and their updates of the inflation rate and real GDP growth rate. Our empirical results suggest that the forecast updates for Taiwan are progressive, and that progress can be explained predominantly by improved intuition. Chang, C.L. Franses, Ph.H.B.F. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39433/ 2013-03-21T00:00:00Z The purpose of the paper is to discuss ten things potential users should know about the limits of the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) representation for estimating and forecasting time-varying conditional correlations. The reasons given for caution about the use of DCC include the following: DCC represents the dynamic conditional covariances of the standardized residuals, and hence does not yield dynamic conditional correlations; DCC is stated rather than derived; DCC has no moments; DCC does not have testable regularity conditions; DCC yields inconsistent two step estimators; DCC has no asymptotic properties; DCC is not a special case of GARCC, which has testable regularity conditions and standard asymptotic properties; DCC is not dynamic empirically as the effect of news is typically extremely small; DCC cannot be distinguished empirically from diagonal BEKK in small systems; and DCC may be a useful filter or a diagnostic check, but it is not a model. Caporin, M. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39432/ 2013-03-15T00:00:00Z We aim to disentangle the relative contributions of (i) cognitive ability, and (ii) education on health and mortality using a structural equation model suggested by Conti et al. (2010). We extend their model by allowing for a duration dependent variable, and an ordinal educational variable. Data come from a Dutch cohort born around 1940, including detailed measures of cognitive ability and family background at age 12. The data are subsequently linked to the mortality register 1995-2011, such that we observe mortality between ages 55 and 75. The results suggest that the treatment effect of education (i.e. the effect of entering secondary school as opposed to leaving school after primary education) is positive and amounts to a 4 years gain in life expectancy, on average. Decomposition results suggest that the raw survival differences between educational groups are about equally split between a 'treatment effect' of education, and a 'selection effect' on basis of cognitive ability and family background. Bijwaard, G.E. Veenman, J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39191/ 2013-03-07T00:00:00Z Raviv, E. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39186/ 2013-03-04T00:00:00Z In this paper, we develop a modified maximum likelihood (MML) estimator for the multiple linear regression model with underlying student t distribution. We obtain the closed form of the estimators, derive the asymptotic properties, and demonstrate that the MML estimator is more appropriate for estimating the parameters of the Capital Asset Pricing Model by comparing its performance with least squares estimators (LSE) on the monthly returns of US portfolios. The empirical results reveal that the MML estimators are more efficient than LSE in terms of the relative efficiency of one-step-ahead forecast mean square error in small samples. Bian, G. McAleer, M.J. Wong, W-K. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39189/ 2013-03-04T00:00:00Z This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received recognition after two hours of work. We find that recognition increases subsequent performance substantially, and particularly so when recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Remarkably, workers who did not receive recognition are mainly responsible for this performance increase. This result is consistent with workers having a preference for conformity. Bradler, C. Dur, A.J. Neckermann, S. Non, J.A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39190/ 2013-03-04T00:00:00Z This paper examines the issue of coercive journal self citations and the practical usefulness of two recent journal performance metrics, namely the Eigenfactor score, which may be interpreted as measuring “Journal Influence”, and the Article Influence score, using the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (hereafter ISI) data for 2009 for the 200 most highly cited journals in each of the Sciences and Social Sciences. The paper also compares the two new bibliometric measures with two existing ISI metrics, namely Total Citations and the 5-year Impact Factor (5YIF) (including journal self citations) of a journal. It is shown that the Sciences and Social Sciences are different in terms of the strength of the relationship of journal performance metrics, although the actual relationships are very similar. Moreover, the journal influence and article influence journal performance metrics are shown to be closely related empirically to the two existing ISI metrics, and hence add little in practical usefulness to what is already known, except for eliminating the pressure arising from coercive journal self citations. These empirical results are compared with existing results in the bibliometrics literature. Chang, C.L. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39185/ 2013-02-26T00:00:00Z Wealthier individuals engage in healthier behavior. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by developing a theory of health behavior, and exploiting both lottery winnings and inheritances to test the theory. We distinguish between the direct monetary cost and the indirect health cost (value of health lost) of unhealthy consumption. The health cost increases with wealth and the degree of unhealthiness, leading wealthier individuals to consume more healthy and moderately unhealthy, but fewer severely unhealthy goods. The empirical evidence presented suggests that differences in health costs may indeed provide an explanation for behavioral differences, and ultimately health outcomes, Kippersluis, J.L.W. van Galama, T.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38781/ 2013-02-18T00:00:00Z Experts possess knowledge and information that are not publicly available. The paper is concerned with forecasting academic journal quality and research impact using a survey of international experts from a national project on ranking academic finance journals in Taiwan. A comparison is made with publicly available bibliometric data, namely the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (hereafter ISI) for the Business - Finance (hereafter Finance) category. The paper analyses the leading international journals in Finance using expert scores and quantifiable Research Assessment Measures (RAMs), and highlights the similarities and differences in the expert scores and alternative RAMs, where the RAMs are based on alternative transformations of citations taken from the ISI database. Alternative RAMs may be calculated annually or updated daily to answer the perennial questions as to When, Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited (see Chang et al. (2011a, b, c)). The RAMs include the most widely used RAM, namely the classic 2-year impact factor including journal self citations (2YIF), 2-year impact factor excluding journal self citations (2YIF*), 5-year impact factor including journal self citations (5YIF), Immediacy (or zero-year impact factor (0YIF)), Eigenfactor, Article Influence, C3PO (Citation Performance Per Paper Online), h-index, PI-BETA (Papers Ignored - By Even The Authors), 2-year Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (2Y-STAR), Historical Self-citation Threshold Approval Ratings (H-STAR), Impact Factor Inflation (IFI), and Cited Article Influence (CAI). As data are not available for 5YIF, Article Influence and CAI for 13 of the leading 34 journals considered, 10 RAMs are analysed for 21 highly-cited journals in Finance. The harmonic mean of the ranks of the 10 RAMs for the 34 highly-cited journals are also presented. It is shown that emphasizing the 2-year impact factor of a journal, which partly answers the question as to When published papers are cited, to the exclusion of other informative RAMs, which answer Where and How (frequently) published papers are cited, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal impact and influence relative to the Harmonic Mean rankings. A linear regression model is used to forecast expert scores on the basis of RAMs that capture journal impact, journal policy, the number of high quality papers, and quantitative information about a journal. The robustness of the rankings is also analysed. Chang, C.L. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38780/ 2013-02-11T00:00:00Z In recent years, Combinatorial Clock Auctions (CCAs) have been used around the world to allocate frequency spectrum for mobile telecom licenses. CCAs are claimed to significantly reduce the scope for gaming or strategic bidding. In this paper, we show, however, that CCAs significantly enhance the possibilities for strategic bidding. Real bidders in telecom markets are not only interested in the spectrum they win themselves and the price they pay for that, but also in the price competitors pay for that spectrum. Moreover, budget constraints play an important role. When these considerations are taken into account, CCAs provide bidders with significant gaming possibilities, resulting in high auction prices and problems associated with multiple equilibria and bankruptcy (given optimal bidding strategies). Janssen, M.C.W. Karamychev, V.A. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38779/ 2013-01-31T00:00:00Z There has recently been growing interest in modeling and estimating alternative continuous time multivariate stochastic volatility models. We propose a continuous time fractionally integrated Wishart stochastic volatility (FIWSV) process. We derive the conditional Laplace transform of the FIWSV model in order to obtain a closed form expression of moments. We conduct a two-step procedure, namely estimating the parameter of fractional integration via log-periodgram regression in the first step, and estimating the remaining parameters via the generalized method of moments in the second step. Monte Carlo results for the procedure shows reasonable performances in finite samples. The empirical results for the bivariate data of the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 indexes show that the data favor the new FIWSV processes rather than one-factor and two-factor models of Wishart autoregressive processes for the covariance structure. Asai, M. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38777/ 2013-01-25T00:00:00Z The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of crude oil price on global fertilizer prices in both the mean and volatility. The endogenous structural breakpoint unit root test, ARDL model, and alternative volatility models, including GARCH, EGARCH, and GJR models, are used to investigate the relationship between crude oil price and six global fertilizer prices. The empirical results from ARDL show that most fertilizer prices are significantly affected by the crude oil price while the volatility of global fertilizer prices and crude oil price from March to December 2008 are higher than in other periods. Chen, P.Y. Chang, C.L. McAleer, M.J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38776/ 2013-01-22T00:00:00Z Allen, D.E. Anwar, A.M. McAleer, M.J. Powell, R.J. Singh, A.K. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38773/ 2013-01-18T00:00:00Z The purpose of this paper is to examine the asymmetric relationship between price and implied volatility and the associated extreme quantile dependence using linear and non linear quantile regression approach. Our goal in this paper is to demonstrate that the relationship between the volatility and market return as quantified by Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression is not uniform across the distribution of the volatility-price return pairs using quantile regressions. We examine the bivariate relationship of six volatility-return pairs, viz. CBOE-VIX and S&P-500, FTSE-100 Volatility and FTSE-100, NASDAQ-100 Volatility (VXN) and NASDAQ, DAX Volatility (VDAX) and DAX-30, CAC Volatility (VCAC) and CAC-40 and STOXX Volatility (VSTOXX) and STOXX. The assumption of a normal distribution in the return series is not appropriate when the distribution is skewed and hence OLS does not capture the complete picture of the relationship. Quantile regression on the other hand can be set up with various loss functions, both parametric and non-parametric (linear case) and can be evaluated with skewed marginal based copulas (for the non linear case). Which is helpful in evaluating the non-normal and non-linear nature of the relationship between price and volatility. In the empirical analysis we compare the results from linear quantile regression (LQR) and copula based non linear quantile regression known as copula quantile regression (CQR). The discussion of the properties of the volatility series and empirical findings in this paper have significance for portfolio optimization, hedging strategies, trading strategies and risk management in general. Allen, D.E. Singh, A.K. Powell, R.J. McAleer, M.J. Taylor, J. Thomas, L. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38750/ 2013-01-17T00:00:00Z This paper features an analysis of the relationship between the S&P 500 Index and the VIX using daily data obtained from both the CBOE website and SIRCA (The Securities Industry Research Centre of the Asia Pacific). We explore the relationship between the S&P 500 daily continuously compounded return series and a similar series for the VIX in terms of a long sample drawn from the CBOE running from 1990 to mid 2011 and a set of returns from SIRCA's TRTH datasets running from March 2005 to-date. We divide this shorter sample, which captures the behaviour of the new VIX, introduced in 2003, into four roughly equivalent sub-samples which permit the exploration of the impact of the Global Financial Crisis. We apply to our data sets a series of non-parametric based tests utilising entropy based metrics. These suggest that the PDFs and CDFs of these two return distributions change shape in various subsample periods. The entropy and MI statistics suggest that the degree of uncertainty attached to these distributions changes through time and using the S&P 500 return as the dependent variable, that the amount of information obtained from the VIX also changes with time and reaches a relative maximum in the most recent period from 2011 to 2012. The entropy based non-parametric tests of the equivalence of the two distributions and their symmetry all strongly reject their respective nulls. The results suggest that parametric techniques do not adequately capture the complexities displayed in the behaviour of these series. This has practical implications for hedging utilising derivatives written on the VIX, which will be the focus of a subsequent study. Allen, D.E. McAleer, M.J. Powell, R.J. Singh, A.K.