2,771 research outputs found
Significance of log-periodic precursors to financial crashes
We clarify the status of log-periodicity associated with speculative bubbles
preceding financial crashes. In particular, we address Feigenbaum's [2001]
criticism and show how it can be rebuked. Feigenbaum's main result is as
follows: ``the hypothesis that the log-periodic component is present in the
data cannot be rejected at the 95% confidence level when using all the data
prior to the 1987 crash; however, it can be rejected by removing the last year
of data.'' (e.g., by removing 15% of the data closest to the critical point).
We stress that it is naive to analyze a critical point phenomenon, i.e., a
power law divergence, reliably by removing the most important part of the data
closest to the critical point. We also present the history of log-periodicity
in the present context explaining its essential features and why it may be
important. We offer an extension of the rational expectation bubble model for
general and arbitrary risk-aversion within the general stochastic discount
factor theory. We suggest guidelines for using log-periodicity and explain how
to develop and interpret statistical tests of log-periodicity. We discuss the
issue of prediction based on our results and the evidence of outliers in the
distribution of drawdowns. New statistical tests demonstrate that the 1% to 10%
quantile of the largest events of the population of drawdowns of the Nasdaq
composite index and of the Dow Jones Industrial Average index belong to a
distribution significantly different from the rest of the population. This
suggests that very large drawdowns result from an amplification mechanism that
may make them more predictable than smaller market moves.Comment: Latex document of 38 pages including 16 eps figures and 3 tables, in
press in Quantitative Financ
Yambo: an \textit{ab initio} tool for excited state calculations
{\tt yambo} is an {\it ab initio} code for calculating quasiparticle energies
and optical properties of electronic systems within the framework of many-body
perturbation theory and time-dependent density functional theory. Quasiparticle
energies are calculated within the approximation for the self-energy.
Optical properties are evaluated either by solving the Bethe--Salpeter equation
or by using the adiabatic local density approximation. {\tt yambo} is a
plane-wave code that, although particularly suited for calculations of periodic
bulk systems, has been applied to a large variety of physical systems. {\tt
yambo} relies on efficient numerical techniques devised to treat systems with
reduced dimensionality, or with a large number of degrees of freedom. The code
has a user-friendly command-line based interface, flexible I/O procedures and
is interfaced to several publicly available density functional ground-state
codes.Comment: This paper describes the features of the Yambo code, whose source is
available under the GPL license at www.yambo-code.or
Decomposing Integrated Assessment Climate Change
We present a decomposition approach for integrated assessment modeling of climate policy based on a linear approximation of the climate system. Our objective is to demonstrate the usefulness of decomposition for integrated assessment models posed in a complementarity format. First, the complementarity formulation cum decomposition permits a precise representation of post-terminal damages thereby substantially reducing the model horizon required to produce an accurate approximation of the infinite-horizon equilibrium. Second, and central to the economic assessment of climate policies, the complementarity approach provides a means of incorporating second-best effects that are not easily represented in an optimization model. --integrated assessment,decomposition,terminal constraints,optimal taxation
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