Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/19687 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper Series 1 No. 2007,10
Publisher: 
Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
Since Mandelbrot's seminal work (1963), alpha-stable distributions with infinite variance have been regarded as a more realistic distributional assumption than the normal distribution for some economic variables, especially financial data. After providing a brief survey of theoretical results on estimation and hypothesis testing in regression models with infinite-variance variables, we examine the statistical properties of the coefficient of determination in regression models with infinite-variance variables. These properties differ in several important aspects from those in the well-known finite variance case. In the infinite-variance case when the regressor and error term share the same index of stability, the coefficient of determination has a nondegenerate asymptotic distribution on the entire [0,1] interval, and the probability density function of this distribution is unbounded at 0 and 1. We provide closedform expressions for the cumulative distribution function and probability density function of this limit random variable. In an empirical application, we revisit the Fama-MacBeth two-stage regression and show that in the infinite variance case the coefficient of determination of the second-stage regression converges to zero asymptotically.
Subjects: 
Regression models
alpha-stable distributions
infinite variance
coefficient of determination
Fama-MacBeth regression
Monte Carlo simulation
JEL: 
C13
C21
G12
C12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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