In this paper, I show that the variance of Fama-French factors, the variance of the momentum factor, as well as the correlation between these factors, predict an important fraction of the timeseries variation in post-1990 aggregate stock market returns. This predictability is particularly strong from one month to one year, and it dominates that afforded by the variance risk premium and other po...

I extend the theory on factor models by incorporating “local” factors into the model. Local factors affect a decreasing fraction of the observed variables. This implies a continuum of eigenvalues of the covariance matrix, as is commonly observed in applications. I derive conditions under which local factors will be estimated consistently using the common principal component estimator. I further...

In this paper, I examine the …nite sample properties of the Vuong test (Vuong (1989)) for nonnested model comparison. I …nd that both the one-step and the two-step classical Vuong tests over-reject the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is true. The over-rejection can be large in certain scenarios. A simple one-step modi…ed test is proposed. The modi…ed test applies to both overlapping mo...

Big Data offer potential benefits for statistical modelling, but confront problems like an excess of false positives, mistaking correlations for causes, ignoring sampling biases, and selecting by inappropriate methods. We consider the many important requirements when searching for a data-based relationship using Big Data, and the possible role of Autometrics in that context. Paramount considera...

This paper investigates if component GARCH models introduced by Engle and Lee (1999) and Ding and Granger (1996) can capture the long-range dependence observed in measures of time-series volatility. Long-range dependence is assessed through the sample autocorrelations, two popular semiparametric estimators of the long-memory parameter, and the parametric fractionally integrated GARCH (FIGARCH) ...

Building on previous literature, we assess when foreign aid is effective in fighting terrorism using quantile regressions on a panel of 78 developing countries for the period 1984-2008. Bilteral, multilateral and total aid indicators are used whereas terrorism includes: domestic, transnational, unclear and total terrorism dynamics. We consistently establish that foreign aid (bilateral, multilat...

This paper proposes an empirical Bayes approach for Markov switching autoregressions that can constrain some of the state-dependent parameters (regression coefficients and error variances) to be approximately equal across regimes. By flexibly reducing the dimension of the parameter space, this can help to ensure regime separation and to detect the Markov switching nature of the data. The permut...

We propose a Vuong (1989)-type model selection test for models defined by conditional moment restrictions. The moment restrictions can be standard equality restrictions that point identify the model parameters, or moment equality or inequality restrictions that partially identify the model parameters. The test uses a new average generalized empirical likelihood criterion function designed to in...

We propose a new test for superior predictive ability. The new test compares favorable to the reality check for data snooping (RC), because the former is more powerful and less sensitive to poor and irrelevant alternatives. The improvements are achieved by two modifications of the RC. We employ a studentized test statistic that reduces the influence of erratic forecasts and we invoke a sample d...