The History of the Quantitative Methods in Finance Conference Series. 1992-2007

This report charts the history of the Quantitative Methods in Finance (QMF) conference from its beginning in 1993 to the 15th conference in 2007. It lists alphabetically the 1037 speakers who presented at all 15 conferences and the titles of their papers.

Choosing the Currency Structure of Foreign-currency Debt: a Review of Policy Approaches

Starting from the constraints and incentives that cause countries to issue debt in foreign currency, this paper provides an overview of policy approaches for choosing the optimal currency structure of sovereign foreign-currency debt. The objective of sovereign debt managers generally includes both risk and cost minimization, while constraints to foreign-currency debt allocation originate in the parameters of the domestic macroeconomy, the shocks it faces, and the initial conditions. Overall, the main parameters that drive the solutions for optimal currency allocation of foreign-currency debt are the covariances of macrovariables with exchange rates and the variances of different exchange rates. Both the covariances and the exchange rate volatility can be deceptive when a fixed exchange rate regime is maintained, however. To adequately capture the expected covariances in the context of managed exchange rate regimes, we suggest that sovereign debt managers work with equilibrium instead of actual exchange rates. For the same reason and because the estimates of relative exchange rate variances should be forward looking, we suggest using synchronization indicators in the policy analysis to better capture the underlying drivers of exchange rate volatility across currencies.Sovereign Debt Management, Foreign-Currency Debt, Exchange Rates and Exchange Rate Volatility, External Shocks, Developing Countries.

Volatility forecasting

Volatility has been one of the most active and successful areas of research in time series econometrics and economic forecasting in recent decades. This chapter provides a selective survey of the most important theoretical developments and empirical insights to emerge from this burgeoning literature, with a distinct focus on forecasting applications. Volatility is inherently latent, and Section 1 begins with a brief intuitive account of various key volatility concepts. Section 2 then discusses a series of different economic situations in which volatility plays a crucial role, ranging from the use of volatility forecasts in portfolio allocation to density forecasting in risk management. Sections 3, 4 and 5 present a variety of alternative procedures for univariate volatility modeling and forecasting based on the GARCH, stochastic volatility and realized volatility paradigms, respectively. Section 6 extends the discussion to the multivariate problem of forecasting conditional covariances and correlations, and Section 7 discusses volatility forecast evaluation methods in both univariate and multivariate cases. Section 8 concludes briefly. JEL Klassifikation: C10, C53, G1

Managing uncertainty:financial, actuarial and statistical modelling.

present value; Value; Actuarial;

Human Capital as an Asset Mix and Optimal Life-Cycle Portfolio: An Analytical Solution

This study examines life-cycle optimal consumption and asset allocation in the presence of human capital. Labor income seems like a "money market mutual fund" whose balance in one or two years is predictable but a wide dispersion results after many years, reflecting fluctuations in economic conditions. We use the Martingale method to derive an analytical solution, finding that Mertons well- known "constant-mix strategy" is still true after incorporating human capital from the perspective of "total wealth" management. Moreover, the proportion in risky assets implicit in the agent's human capital is the main factor determining the optimal investment strategy. The numerical examples suggest that young investors should short stocks because their human capital has large market exposure. As they age, however, their human capital becomes "bond-like", and thus they have to hold stocks to achieve optimal overall risk exposure.