DSFM fitting of Implied Volatility Surfaces

The implied volatility became one of the key issues in modern quantitative finance, since the plain vanilla option prices contain vital information for pricing and hedging of exotic and illiquid options. European plain vanilla options are nowadays widely traded, which results in a great amount of high-dimensional data especially on an intra day level. The data reveal a degenerated string structure. Dynamic Semiparametric Factor Models (DSFM) are tailored to handle complex, degenerated data and yield low dimensional representation of the implied volatility surface (IVS). We discuss estimation issues of the model and apply it to DAX option prices.dynamic semiparametric factor model, implied volatility, vanilla options, DAX option prices

Do Factor Shares Reflect Technology?

This note demonstrates that it is easily possible to compute technological parameters out of national income accounting data in the presence of bargaining in the labor market. Applying the method to US data, we obtain that the output elasticity with respect to capital exceed 0.5.Factor Shares, Nash Bargaining

What are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?

We propose and apply a new approach for analyzing the effects of fiscal policy using vector autoregressions. Unlike most of the previous literature this approach does not require that the contemporaneous reaction of some variables to fiscal policy shocks be set to zero or need additional information, such as the timing of wars, in order to identify fiscal policy shocks. The paper's method is a purely vector autoregressive approach which can be universally applied. The approach also has the advantages that it is able to model the effects of announcements of future changes in fiscal policy and that it is able to distinguish between the changes in fiscal variables caused by fiscal policy shocks and those caused by business cycle and monetary policy shocks. We apply the method to US quarterly data from 1955-2000 and obtain interesting results. Our key finding is that the best fiscal policy to stimulate the economy is a deficit-financed tax cut and that the long term costs of fiscal expansion through government spending are probably greater than the short term gains.Fiscal Policy, Vector Autoregression, Bayesian Econometrics, Agnostic identification

Integrable e-lements for Statistics Education

Without doubt modern education in statistics must involve practical, computer-based data analysis but the question arises whether and how computational elements should be integrated into the canon of methodological education. Should the student see and study high-level programming code right at the beginning of his or her studies? Which technology can be presented during class and which computational elements can re-occur (at increasing level of complexity) during the different courses? In this paper we address these questions and discuss where e-techniques have their limits in statistics education.electronic books, hypertext, e-supported teaching, statistical software

On Local Times of Ranked Continuous Semimartingales;Application to Portfolio Generating Functions

We derive the decomposition of the ranked continuous semimartingales i.e. order-statistics processes. We apply it to portfolios generated by functions of the ranked market weights. Thus we generalize recent results of Fernholz.Portfolio-generating function, continuous semimartingale, local time, ranked processes

A Market Basket Analysis Conducted with a Multivariate Logit Model

The following research is guided by the hypothesis that products chosen on a shopping trip in a supermarket can indicate the preference interdependencies between different products or brands. The bundle chosen on the trip can be regarded as the result of a global utility function. More specifically: the existence of such a function implies a cross-category dependence of brand choice behavior. It is hypothesized that the global utility function related to a product bundle results from the marketing-mix of the underlying brands. Several approaches exist to describe the choice of specific categories from a set of many alternatives. The models are discussed in brief; the multivariate logit approach is used to estimate a model with a German data set.market basket analysis, multivariate logit model, brand choice behavior, marketing-mix

Uncovered Interest Rate Parity and the Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure: Empirical Results for the U.S. and Europe

A system of U.S. and euro area short- and long-term interest rates is analyzed. According to the expectations hypothesis of the term structure the interest rate spreads should be stationary and according to the uncovered interest rate parity the difference between the U.S. and euro area longterm interest rates should also be stationary. If all four interest rates are integrated of order one, one would expect to find three linearly independent cointegration relations in the system of four interest rate series. Combining German and European Monetary Union data to obtain the euro area interest rate series we find indeed the theoretically expected three cointegration relations, in contrast to previous studies based on different data sets.Expectations hypothesis of the term structure, uncovered interest rate parity, unit roots, cointegration analysis

Fixed-Prize Tournaments versus First-Price Auctions in Innovation Contests

This paper analyzes a procurement setting with two identical firms and stochastic innovations. In contrast to the previous literature, I show that a procurer who cannot charge entry fees may prefer a fixed-prize tournament to a first-price auction since holding an auction may leave higher rents to firms when the innovation technology is subject to large random factors.innovation contest, auction, tournament, quality

On Local Times of Ranked Continuous Semimartingales

We derive the decomposition of the ranked continuous semimartingales i.e. orderstatistics processes. We apply it to portfolios generated by functions of the ranked market weights. Thus we generalize recent results of Fernholz

Utility duality under additional information: conditional measures versus filtration enlargements

The utility maximisation problem is considered for investors with anticipative additional information. We distinguish between models with conditional measures and models with enlarged filtrations. The dual functions of the maximal expected utility are determined with the help of f-divergences. We assume that our measures are absolutely continuous with respect to a local martingale measure (LMM), but not necessarily equivalent. Thus we do not exclude arbitrage.utility maximisation, additional information, enlargement of filtrations, conditional measures, convex conjugate function, dual function, f-divergence