Volume 36 of Advances in Econometrics recognizes Aman Ullah's significant contributions in many areas of econometrics and celebrates his long productive career. The volume features original papers on the theory and practice of econometrics that is related to the work of Aman Ullah. Topics include nonparametric/semiparametric econometrics; finite sample econometrics; shrinkage methods; information/entropy econometrics; model specification testing; robust inference; panel/spatial models. Advances in Econometrics is a research annual whose editorial policy is to publish original research articles that contain enough details so that economists and econometricians who are not experts in the topics will find them accessible and useful in their research.

The Regression Discontinuity (RD) design is one of the most popular and credible research designs for program evaluation and causal inference. This volume 38 of Advances in Econometrics collects twelve innovative and thought-provoking contributions to the RD literature, covering a wide range of methodological and practical topics. Some chapters touch on foundational methodological issues such as identification, interpretation, implementation, falsification testing, estimation and inference, while others focus on more recent and related topics such as identification and interpretation in a discontinuity-in-density framework, empirical structural estimation, comparative RD methods, and extrapolation. These chapters not only give new insights for current methodological and empirical research, but also provide new bases and frameworks for future work in this area. This volume contributes to the rapidly expanding RD literature by bringing together theoretical and applied econometricians, statisticians, and social, behavioural and biomedical scientists, in the hope that these interactions will further spark innovative practical developments in this important and active research area.

These essays honor Professor Peter C.B. Phillips of Yale University and his many contributions to the field of econometrics. Professor Phillips's research spans many topics in econometrics including: non-stationary time series and panel models partial identification and weak instruments Bayesian model evaluation and prediction financial econometrics and finite-sample statistical methods and results. The papers in this volume reflect additions to and amplifications of many of Professor Phillips' research contributions. Some of the topics discussed in the volume include panel macro-econometric modeling, efficient estimation and inference in difference-in-difference models, limiting and empirical distributions of IV estimates when some of the instruments are endogenous, the use of stochastic dominance techniques to examine conditional wage distributions of incumbents and newly hired employees, long-horizon predictive tests in financial markets, new developments in information matrix testing, testing for co-integration in Markov switching error correction models, and deviation information criteria for comparing vector autoregressive models.

Vector autoregressive (VAR) models are among the most widely used econometric tools in the fields of macroeconomics and financial economics. Much of what we know about the response of the economy to macroeconomic shocks and about how various shocks have contributed to the evolution of macroeconomic and financial aggregates is based on VAR models. VAR models also have been used successfully for economic and business forecasting, for modelling risk and volatility, and for the construction of forecast scenarios. Since the introduction of VAR models by C.A. Sims in 1980, the VAR methodology has continuously evolved. Even today important extensions and reinterpretations of the VAR framework are being developed. Examples include VAR models for mixed-frequency data, VAR models as approximations to DSGE models, factor-augmented VAR models, new tools for the identification of structural shocks in VAR models, panel VAR approaches, and time-varying parameter VAR models. This volume collects contributions from some of the leading VAR experts in the world on VAR methods and applications. Each chapter highlights and synthesizes a new development in this literature in a way that is accessible to practitioners, to graduate students, and to readers in other fields.

Often applied econometricians are faced with working with data that is less than ideal. The data may be observed with gaps in it, a model may suggest variables that are observed at different frequencies, and sometimes econometric results are very fragile to the inclusion or omission of just a few observations in the sample. Papers in this volume discuss new econometric techniques for addressing these problems.

Studies in the Economics of Uncertainty presents some new developments in the economics of uncertainty produced by leading scholars in the field. The contributions to this Festschrift in honor of Professor Josef Hadar of Southern Methodist University cover a broad range of topics centered on the principle of Stochastic Dominance. Topics covered range from theoretical and statistical developments on Stochastic Dominance to new applications of the Stochastic Dominance Theory. The intended audience includes researchers interested in recent developments in tools used for decision-making under uncertainty as well as economists currently applying Stochastic Dominance principles to the analysis of the Theory of Firm, International Trade, and the Theory of Finance.

This book had its conception in 1975in a friendly tavern near the School of Businessand PublicAdministration at the UniversityofMissouri-Columbia. Two of the authors (Fomby and Hill) were graduate students of the third (Johnson), and were (and are) concerned about teaching econometrics effectively at the graduate level. We decided then to write a book to serve as a comprehensive text for graduate econometrics. Generally, the material included in the bookand itsorganization have been governed by the question, " Howcould the subject be best presented in a graduate class?" For content, this has meant that we have tried to cover " all the bases " and yet have not attempted to be encyclopedic. The intended purpose has also affected the levelofmathematical rigor. We have tended to prove only those results that are basic and/or relatively straightforward. Proofs that would demand inordinant amounts of class time have simply been referenced. The book is intended for a two-semester course and paced to admit more extensive treatment of areas of specific interest to the instructor and students. We have great confidence in the ability, industry, and persistence of graduate students in ferreting out and understanding the omitted proofs and results. In the end, this is how one gains maturity and a fuller appreciation for the subject in any case. It is assumed that the readers of the book will have had an econometric methods course, using texts like J. Johnston's Econometric Methods, 2nd ed.

The editors are pleased to offer the following papers to the reader in recognition and appreciation of the contributions to our literature made by Robert Engle and Sir Clive Granger, winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics. The basic themes of this part of Volume 20 of Advances in Econometrics are time varying betas of the capital asset pricing model, analysis of predictive densities of nonlinear models of stock returns, modelling multivariate dynamic correlations, flexible seasonal time series models, estimation of long-memory time series models, the application of the technique of boosting in volatility forecasting, the use of different time scales in GARCH modelling, out-of-sample evaluation of the Fed Model in stock price valuation, structural change as an alternative to long memory, the use of smooth transition auto-regressions in stochastic volatility modelling, the analysis of the balanced-ness of regressions analyzing Taylor-Type rules of the Fed Funds rate, a mixture-of-experts approach for the estimation of stochastic volatility, a modern assessment of Clives first published paper on Sunspot activity, and a new class of models of tail-dependence in time series subject to jumps.
*This Series: Aids in the diffusion of new econometric techniques
* Emphasis is placed on expositional clarity and ease of assimilation for readers who are unfamiliar with a given topic of a volume
*Illustrates new concepts

The editors are pleased to offer the following papers to the reader in recognition and appreciation of the contributions to our literature made by Robert Engle and Sir Clive Granger, winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics. The basic themes of this part of Volume 20 of Advances in Econometrics are time varying betas of the capital asset pricing model, analysis of predictive densities of nonlinear models of stock returns, modelling multivariate dynamic correlations, flexible seasonal time series models, estimation of long-memory time series models, the application of the technique of boosting in volatility forecasting, the use of different time scales in GARCH modelling, out-of-sample evaluation of the Fed Model in stock price valuation, structural change as an alternative to long memory, the use of smooth transition auto-regressions in stochastic volatility modelling, the analysis of the balanced-ness of regressions analyzing Taylor-Type rules of the Fed Funds rate, a mixture-of-experts approach for the estimation of stochastic volatility, a modern assessment of Clives first published paper on Sunspot activity, and a new class of models of tail-dependence in time series subject to jumps.
*This Series: Aids in the diffusion of new econometric techniques
*Emphasis is placed on expositional clarity and ease of assimilation for readers who are unfamiliar with a given topic of a volume
*Illustrates new concepts

The entropy concept was developed and used by Shannon in 1940 as a measure of uncertainty in the context of information theory. In 1957 Jaynes made use of Shannon's entropy concept as a basis for estimation and inference in problems that are ill-suited for traditional statistical procedures. This volume consists of two sections. The first section contains papers developing econometric methods based on the entropy principle. An interesting array of applications is presented in the second section of the volume.

The main theme of this volume is credit risk and credit derivatives. Recent developments in financial markets show that appropriate modeling and quantification of credit risk is fundamental in the context of modern complex structured financial products. The reader will find several points of view on credit risk when looked at from the perspective of Econometrics and Financial Mathematics. The volume consists of eleven contributions by both practitioners and theoreticians with expertise in financial markets, in general, and econometrics and mathematical finance in particular. The challenge of modeling defaults and their correlations is addressed, and new results on copula, reduced form and structural models, and the top-down approach are presented. After the so-called subprime crisis that hit global markets in the summer of 2007, the volume is very timely and will be useful to researchers in the area of credit risk.

1 Introduction.- 2 Review of Ordinary Least Squares and Generalized Least Squares.- 3 Point Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses in Small Samples.- 4 Large Sample Point Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses.- 5 Stochastic Regressors.- 6 Use of Prior Information.- 7 Preliminary Test and Stein-Rule Estimators.- 8 Feasible Generalized Least Squares Estimation.- 9 Heteroscedasticity.- 10 Autocorrelation.- 11 Lagged Dependent Variables and Autcorrelation.- 12 Unobservable Variables.- 13 Multicollinearity.- 14 Varying Coefficient Models.- 15 Models That Combine Time-Series and Cross-Section Data.- 16 The Analysis of Models with Qualitative or Censored Dependent Variables.- 17 Distributed Lags.- 18 Uncertainty in Model Specification and Selection.- 19 Introduction to Simultaneous Equations Models.- 20 Identification.- 21 Limited Information Estimation.- 22 Full Information Estimation.- 23 Reduced Form Estimation and Prediction in Simultaneous Equations Models.- 24 Properties of Dynamic Simultaneous Equations Models.- 25 Special Topics in Simultaneous Equations.- Appendix Estimation and Inference in Nonlinear Statistical Models.- A.1 Nonlinear Optimization.- A.1.1 Method of Steepest Ascent.- A.1.2 The Method of Newton.- A.1.3 Method of Quadratic Hill Climbing.- A.1.4 Numerical Differentiation.- A.2 Maximum Likelihood Estimation.- A.2.1 Use of the Method of Newton.- A.2.2 Method of Scoring.- A.2.3 The Method of Berndt, Hall, Hall, and Hausman.- A.2.4 Asymptotic Tests Based on the Maximum Likelihood Method.- A.2.4a The Wald Test.- A.2.4b The Lagrange-Multiplier Test.- A.2.4c The Likelihood Ratio Test Statistic.- A.2.4d Concluding Remarks.- A.3 Nonlinear Regression.- A.4 Summary and Guide to Further Readings.- A.5 References.