Volume 23, Issue 1

We use a leveraged quantile heterogeneous autoregressive model of realized volatility to illustrate that volatility persistence and the asymmetric “leverage” effect are high volatility phenomena. More specifically, we find that (i) low volatility is not persistent, but high volatility all the more, even featuring properties of explosive processes; and (ii) asymmetry of volatility is only a high volatility phenomenon and there is no asymmetry in low volatility regimes. Our results turn out to be robust to the choice of the realized variance estimator, in particular with respect to jumps. The analysis illustrates that quantile regression can provide information that is hidden in commonly used GARCH or realized volatility models. The quantile regression results can also be linked to the weak empirical evidence of the leverage effect and the volatility feedback effect.

A nonlinear model of asset returns allowing for multiple shocks is specified. The nonlinear features of the model are demonstrated graphically using a 3-dimensional diagram referred to as the mean impact surface. A new class of nonlinearity tests is also developed which is compared with existing testing methodologies. Applying the framework using excess returns on US and world equities the empirical results provide strong statistical evidence that domestic and foreign shocks have nonlinear effects on expected returns in the US with the effects being determined by the sign and the size of shocks. In contrast, the effects on world expected returns from shocks in the US and the world are found to react more smoothly. The empirical nonlinearities identified are also shown to be robust to alternative choices of risk factors and distributional assumptions.

A flexible multivariate model of a time-varying joint distribution of asset returns is developed which allows for regime switching and a joint skew-normal distribution. A suite of tests for linear and nonlinear financial market contagion is developed within the framework. The model is illustrated through an application to contagion between US and European equity markets during the Global Financial Crisis. The results show that correlation contagion dominates coskewness contagion, but that coskewness contagion is significant for Greece. A flight to safety to the US is also evident in the significance of breaks in the skewness parameter in the crisis regime. Comparison to the Asian crisis shows that similar patterns emerge, with a flight to safety to Japan, and Malaysia affected by coskewnes contagion with Hong Kong.

When evaluating policy treatments that are persistent and endogenous, available instrumental variables often exhibit more variation over time than the treatment variable. This leads to a weak instrumental variable problem, resulting in high bias or uninformative confidence intervals. We evaluate two new estimation approaches that strengthen the instrument. We derive their theoretical properties and show in Monte Carlo simulations that they outperform standard IV-estimators. We use our procedures to estimate the effect of public utility divestiture in the US nuclear energy sector. Our results show that divestiture significantly increases production efficiency.

This paper incorporates the so-called Bhaduri-Marglin accumulation function in Goodwin’s original growth cycle model and econometrically estimates the proposed model for the case of the US economy in the time period 1960–2012, using a modern Bayesian sequential Monte Carlo method. Based on our findings, the US economy follows an exhilarationist regime throughout our investigation period with the sole exception of an underconsumption regime for the time period 1974–1978. In general, the results suggest that the proposed approach is an appropriate vehicle for expanding and improving traditional Goodwin-type models.

Although most contest games are modeled in such a way that the outcome depends only on the efforts exerted by the contestants, what is arguably more important is the contestants’ effective efforts which may be influenced also by their ability, human capital, strength, etc. In this paper, we investigate an extensive model including such an effectiveness parameter and analyze the optimal investment behavior in a dynamic conflict framework. At each period, two contestants compete for a common prize by choosing contest efforts and investment levels. Each contestant’s investment accumulates as his/her human capital which depreciates through time. Who wins the component contest at a particular period is determined by the contestants’ effective efforts, defined as increasing functions of their efforts and human capitals. Following the analysis of subgame perfect Nash equilibrium in a two-period model and of open-loop equilibrium in an infinite-horizon model, we provide intuitive comparative static results.