Mixtures of t-distributions for finance and forecasting

Raffaella Giacomini (), Andreas Gottschling, Christian Haefke and Halbert White

Journal of Econometrics, 2008, vol. 144, issue 1, 175-192

Abstract: We explore convenient analytic properties of distributions constructed as mixtures of scaled and shifted t-distributions. Particularly desirable for econometric applications are closed-form expressions for antiderivatives (e.g., the cumulative density function). We illustrate the usefulness of these distributions in two applications. In the first application, we produce density forecasts of U.S. inflation and show that these forecasts are more accurate, out-of-sample, than density forecasts obtained using normal or standard t-distributions. In the second application, we replicate the option-pricing exercise of Abadir and Rockinger [Density functionals, with an option-pricing application. Econometric Theory 19, 778-811.] and obtain comparably good results, while gaining analytical tractability.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4076(08)00005-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Mixtures of t-distributions for Finance and Forecasting (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:econom:v:144:y:2008:i:1:p:175-192

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Econometrics is currently edited by T. Amemiya, A. R. Gallant, J. F. Geweke, C. Hsiao and P. M. Robinson

More articles in Journal of Econometrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().