Smoothed and Iterated Bootstrap Confidence Regions for Parameter Vectors

The construction of confidence regions for parameter vectors is a difficult problem in the nonparametric setting, particularly when the sample size is not large. The bootstrap has shown promise in solving this problem, but empirical evidence often indicates that some bootstrap methods have difficulty in maintaining the correct coverage probability, while other methods may be unstable, often resulting in very large confidence regions. One way to improve the performance of a bootstrap confidence region is to restrict the shape of the region in such a way that the error term of an expansion is as small an order as possible. To some extent, this can be achieved by using the bootstrap to construct an ellipsoidal confidence region. This paper studies the effect of using the smoothed and iterated bootstrap methods to construct an ellipsoidal confidence region for a parameter vector. The smoothed estimate is based on a multivariate kernel density estimator. This paper establishes a bandwidth matrix for the smoothed bootstrap procedure that reduces the asymptotic coverage error of the bootstrap percentile method ellipsoidal confidence region. We also provide an analytical adjustment to the nominal level to reduce the computational cost of the iterated bootstrap method. Simulations demonstrate that the methods can be successfully applied in practice

Off-balance sheet activities in banking: Theory and Indian experience

The paper examines the OBS activities of Indian banks, highlighting, in particular, thier growth, diversification and the factors leading to thier increased usageoff-balance sheet; banking; India

An empirical analysis of the off-balance sheet activities of Indian banks

The paper traces the determinants of off-balance sheet activities in the Indian banking sector. Using data for the period 1996 to 2004, the paper finds that, not only regulatory factors, but also market forces, captured by banks-specific characteristics and macroeconomic conditions are at work in the diffusion pattern of OBS activities. From the regulatory standpoint, while capital adequacy is dominant in case of public sector banks, non-performing assets seem to a prime concern for foreign banks, in addition to the public sector banks. Among others, at the bank-specific level, size is an important consideration for public sector and foreign banks, while profits are a prime mover only for new private banks. Finally, the macroeconomic environment seems to have played an important role in affecting OBS diffusion, more so for public sector and new private banks.Off-balance sheet; regulatory pressure; interest spread; banking; India

Static potential in scalar QED3_3 with non-minimal coupling

Here we compute the static potential in scalar $QED_3$ at leading order in $1/N_f$. We show that the addition of a non-minimal coupling of Pauli-type (\eps j^{\mu}\partial^{\nu}A^{\alpha}), although it breaks parity, it does not change the analytic structure of the photon propagator and consequently the static potential remains logarithmic (confining) at large distances. The non-minimal coupling modifies the potential, however, at small charge separations giving rise to a repulsive force of short range between opposite sign charges, which is relevant for the existence of bound states. This effect is in agreement with a previous calculation based on M$\ddot{o}$ller scattering, but differently from such calculation we show here that the repulsion appears independently of the presence of a tree level Chern-Simons term which rather affects the large distance behavior of the potential turning it into constant.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure