Empirical Asset Pricing


Book Description

An introduction to the theory and methods of empirical asset pricing, integrating classical foundations with recent developments. This book offers a comprehensive advanced introduction to asset pricing, the study of models for the prices and returns of various securities. The focus is empirical, emphasizing how the models relate to the data. The book offers a uniquely integrated treatment, combining classical foundations with more recent developments in the literature and relating some of the material to applications in investment management. It covers the theory of empirical asset pricing, the main empirical methods, and a range of applied topics. The book introduces the theory of empirical asset pricing through three main paradigms: mean variance analysis, stochastic discount factors, and beta pricing models. It describes empirical methods, beginning with the generalized method of moments (GMM) and viewing other methods as special cases of GMM; offers a comprehensive review of fund performance evaluation; and presents selected applied topics, including a substantial chapter on predictability in asset markets that covers predicting the level of returns, volatility and higher moments, and predicting cross-sectional differences in returns. Other chapters cover production-based asset pricing, long-run risk models, the Campbell-Shiller approximation, the debate on covariance versus characteristics, and the relation of volatility to the cross-section of stock returns. An extensive reference section captures the current state of the field. The book is intended for use by graduate students in finance and economics; it can also serve as a reference for professionals.







The Economics of Exchange Rates


Book Description

In the last few decades exchange rate economics has seen a number of developments, with substantial contributions to both the theory and empirics of exchange rate determination. Important developments in econometrics and the increasingly large availability of high-quality data have also been responsible for stimulating the large amount of empirical work on exchange rates in this period. Nonetheless, while our understanding of exchange rates has significantly improved, a number of challenges and open questions remain in the exchange rate debate, enhanced by events including the launch of the Euro and the large number of recent currency crises. This volume provides a selective coverage of the literature on exchange rates, focusing on developments from within the last fifteen years. Clear explanations of theories are offered, alongside an appraisal of the literature and suggestions for further research and analysis.




Encyclopedia of Financial Models, Volume III


Book Description

Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Financial Models The need for serious coverage of financial modeling has never been greater, especially with the size, diversity, and efficiency of modern capital markets. With this in mind, the Encyclopedia of Financial Models has been created to help a broad spectrum of individuals—ranging from finance professionals to academics and students—understand financial modeling and make use of the various models currently available. Incorporating timely research and in-depth analysis, Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Financial Models covers both established and cutting-edge models and discusses their real-world applications. Edited by Frank Fabozzi, this volume includes contributions from global financial experts as well as academics with extensive consulting experience in this field. Organized alphabetically by category, this reliable resource consists of forty-four informative entries and provides readers with a balanced understanding of today’s dynamic world of financial modeling. Volume 3 covers Mortgage-Backed Securities Analysis and Valuation, Operational Risk, Optimization Tools, Probability Theory, Risk Measures, Software for Financial Modeling, Stochastic Processes and Tools, Term Structure Modeling, Trading Cost Models, and Volatility Emphasizes both technical and implementation issues, providing researchers, educators, students, and practitioners with the necessary background to deal with issues related to financial modeling The 3-Volume Set contains coverage of the fundamentals and advances in financial modeling and provides the mathematical and statistical techniques needed to develop and test financial models Financial models have become increasingly commonplace, as well as complex. They are essential in a wide range of financial endeavors, and the Encyclopedia of Financial Models will help put them in perspective.




Conservation Laws and Symmetry: Applications to Economics and Finance


Book Description

Modem geometric methods combine the intuitiveness of spatial visualization with the rigor of analytical derivation. Classical analysis is shown to provide a foundation for the study of geometry while geometrical ideas lead to analytical concepts of intrinsic beauty. Arching over many subdisciplines of mathematics and branching out in applications to every quantitative science, these methods are, notes the Russian mathematician A.T. Fomenko, in tune with the Renais sance traditions. Economists and finance theorists are already familiar with some aspects of this synthetic tradition. Bifurcation and catastrophe theo ries have been used to analyze the instability of economic models. Differential topology provided useful techniques for deriving results in general equilibrium analysis. But they are less aware of the central role that Felix Klein and Sophus Lie gave to group theory in the study of geometrical systems. Lie went on to show that the special methods used in solving differential equations can be classified through the study of the invariance of these equations under a continuous group of transformations. Mathematicians and physicists later recognized the relation between Lie's work on differential equations and symme try and, combining the visions of Hamilton, Lie, Klein and Noether, embarked on a research program whose vitality is attested by the innumerable books and articles written by them as well as by biolo gists, chemists and philosophers.




Handbook of Economic Forecasting


Book Description

The highly prized ability to make financial plans with some certainty about the future comes from the core fields of economics. In recent years the availability of more data, analytical tools of greater precision, and ex post studies of business decisions have increased demand for information about economic forecasting. Volumes 2A and 2B, which follows Nobel laureate Clive Granger's Volume 1 (2006), concentrate on two major subjects. Volume 2A covers innovations in methodologies, specifically macroforecasting and forecasting financial variables. Volume 2B investigates commercial applications, with sections on forecasters' objectives and methodologies. Experts provide surveys of a large range of literature scattered across applied and theoretical statistics journals as well as econometrics and empirical economics journals. The Handbook of Economic Forecasting Volumes 2A and 2B provide a unique compilation of chapters giving a coherent overview of forecasting theory and applications in one place and with up-to-date accounts of all major conceptual issues. - Focuses on innovation in economic forecasting via industry applications - Presents coherent summaries of subjects in economic forecasting that stretch from methodologies to applications - Makes details about economic forecasting accessible to scholars in fields outside economics




Econometric Analysis of Model Selection and Model Testing


Book Description

In recent years econometricians have examined the problems of diagnostic testing, specification testing, semiparametric estimation and model selection. In addition researchers have considered whether to use model testing and model selection procedures to decide the models that best fit a particular dataset. This book explores both issues with application to various regression models, including the arbitrage pricing theory models. It is ideal as a reference for statistical sciences postgraduate students, academic researchers and policy makers in understanding the current status of model building and testing techniques.




The Equity Risk Premium


Book Description

What is the return to investing in the stock market? Can we predict future stock market returns? How have equities performed over the last two centuries? The authors in this volume are among the leading researchers in the study of these questions. This book draws upon their research on the stock market over the past two dozen years. It contains their major research articles on the equity risk premium and new contributions on measuring, forecasting, and timing stock market returns, together with new interpretive essays that explore critical issues and new research on the topic of stock market investing. This book is aimed at all readers interested in understanding the empirical basis for the equity risk premium. Through the analysis and interpretation of two scholars whose research contributions have been key factors in the modern debate over stock market perfomance, this volume engages the reader in many of the key issues of importance to investors. How large is the premium? Is history a reliable guide to predict future equity returns? Does the equity and cash flows of the market? Are global equity markets different from those in the United States? Do emerging markets offer higher or lower equity risk premia? The authors use the historical performance of the world's stock markets to address these issues.