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Our book Asymptotic Techniquesfor Use in Statistics was originally planned as an account of asymptotic statistical theory, but by the time we had completed the mathematical preliminaries it seemed best to publish these separately. The present book, although largely self-contained, takes up the original theme and gives a systematic account of some recent developments in asymptotic parametric inference from a likelihood-based perspective. Chapters 1-4 are relatively elementary and provide first a review of key concepts such as likelihood, sufficiency, conditionality, ancillarity, exponential families and transformation models. Then first-order asymptotic theory is set out, followed by a discussion of the need for higher-order theory. This is then developed in some generality in Chapters 5-8. A final chapter deals briefly with some more specialized issues. The discussion emphasizes concepts and techniques rather than precise mathematical verifications with full attention to regularity conditions and, especially in the less technical chapters, draws quite heavily on illustrative examples. Each chapter ends with outline further results and exercises and with bibliographic notes. Many parts of the field discussed in this book are undergoing rapid further development, and in those parts the book therefore in some respects has more the flavour of a progress report than an exposition of a largely completed theory.

The analysis prediction and interpolation of economic and other time series has a long history and many applications. Major new developments are taking place, driven partly by the need to analyze financial data. The five papers in this book describe those new developments from various viewpoints and are intended to be an introduction accessible to readers from a range of backgrounds.The book arises out of the second Seminaire European de Statistique (SEMSTAT) held in Oxford in December 1994. This brought together young statisticians from across Europe, and a series of introductory lectures were given on topics at the forefront of current research activity. The lectures form the basis for the five papers contained in the book.The papers by Shephard and Johansen deal respectively with time series models for volatility, i.e. variance heterogeneity, and with cointegration. Clements and Hendry analyze the nature of prediction errors. A complementary review paper by Laird gives a biometrical view of the analysis of short time series. Finally Astrup and Nielsen give a mathematical introduction to the study of option pricing. Whilst the book draws its primary motivation from financial series and from multivariate econometric modelling, the applications are potentially much broader.