27,779 research outputs found
A Fourier transform method for nonparametric estimation of multivariate volatility
We provide a nonparametric method for the computation of instantaneous
multivariate volatility for continuous semi-martingales, which is based on
Fourier analysis. The co-volatility is reconstructed as a stochastic function
of time by establishing a connection between the Fourier transform of the
prices process and the Fourier transform of the co-volatility process. A
nonparametric estimator is derived given a discrete unevenly spaced and
asynchronously sampled observations of the asset price processes. The
asymptotic properties of the random estimator are studied: namely, consistency
in probability uniformly in time and convergence in law to a mixture of
Gaussian distributions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-AOS633 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
The Declining Use of Unskilled Labour in Italian Manufacturing: Is Trade to Blame? CEPS Working Document No. 178, December 2001
As in other industrialised countries, the manufacturing sector in Italy has recently experienced a substantial increase in the use of skilled relative to unskilled workers - skill upgrading. In this paper we estimate a model, based upon the notion of outsourcing, of the relative demand for skilled labour which allows identification of the roles of technological change and trade, the two main culprits, in skill upgrading. Compared to previous studies of Italy the model is applied to highly disaggregated industrial data and in addition the impact of trade is more precisely measured through the separate identification of import flows from low-wage labour abundant countries and those from OECD partners. Furthermore we also introduce a measure of trade variability. Our results show firstly that economic variables played little or no role in determining the relative demand for unskilled workers in the 1970s in Italy, reflecting the nature of Italian labour market institutions in the period. Subsequently, in the 1980s and 1990s, following some labour market reforms, we find that international competition, in terms of import penetration and the variability of trade prices, had a significant effect on the relative demand for blue-collar workers in Italy in skilled intensive sectors. In unskilled intensive sectors, such as textiles and clothing, where the impact of imports from low-wage countries might be expected to be more pronounced, we do not find a significant effect from imports but rather that the most important role has been played by technological change. The result is consistent with previous studies that indicate that Italian textile and clothing firms have remained internationally competitive by increasingly switching to high quality segments of the industry
Detecting a long odd hole
For each integer , we give a polynomial-time algorithm to test
whether a graph contains an induced cycle with length at least and odd
Induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number. XII. Distant stars
The Gyarfas-Sumner conjecture asserts that if H is a tree then every graph
with bounded clique number and very large chromatic number contains H as an
induced subgraph. This is still open, although it has been proved for a few
simple families of trees, including trees of radius two, some special trees of
radius three, and subdivided stars. These trees all have the property that
their vertices of degree more than two are clustered quite closely together. In
this paper, we prove the conjecture for two families of trees which do not have
this restriction. As special cases, these families contain all double-ended
brooms and two-legged caterpillars
Disjoint paths in tournaments
Given pairs of vertices , , of a digraph , how
can we test whether there exist vertex-disjoint directed paths from
to for ? This is NP-complete in general digraphs, even for
, but for there is a polynomial-time algorithm when is a
tournament (or more generally, a semicomplete digraph), due to Bang-Jensen and
Thomassen. Here we prove that for all fixed there is a polynomial-time
algorithm to solve the problem when is semicomplete
Detecting an induced net subdivision
A {\em net} is a graph consisting of a triangle and three more vertices,
each of degree one and with its neighbour in , and all adjacent to different
vertices of . We give a polynomial-time algorithm to test whether an input
graph has an induced subgraph which is a subdivision of a net. Unlike many
similar questions, this does not seem to be solvable by an application of the
"three-in-a-tree" subroutine
Induced subgraphs of graphs with large chromatic number. XI. Orientations
Fix an oriented graph H, and let G be a graph with bounded clique number and
very large chromatic number. If we somehow orient its edges, must there be an
induced subdigraph isomorphic to H? Kierstead and Rodl raised this question for
two specific kinds of digraph H: the three-edge path, with the first and last
edges both directed towards the interior; and stars (with many edges directed
out and many directed in). Aboulker et al subsequently conjectured that the
answer is affirmative in both cases. We give affirmative answers to both
questions
Detecting a long odd hole
For each integer , we give a polynomial-time algorithm to test
whether a graph contains an induced cycle with length at least and odd
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