We evaluate the impact of labour market programmes on unemployment durations in Norway, by means of a distribution-free mixed proportional competing risks hazard rate model. We find that programme participation, once completed, improves employment prospects, but that there is often an...

This paper proposes a Lagrange multiplier (LM) test for the null hypothesis of cointegration that allows for the possibility of multiple structural breaks in both the level and trend of a cointegrated panel regression. The test is general enough to allow for endogenous regressors, serial...

We consider the impact of a break in the innovation volatility process on ratio-based persistence change tests. We demonstrate that the ratio statistics used do not have pivotal limiting null distributions and that the associated tests display a considerable degree of size distortion with size...

Panel unit-root and no-cointegration tests that rely on cross-sectional independence of the panel unit experience severe size distortions when this assumption is violated, as has, for example, been shown by Banerjee, Marcellino and Osbat ["Econometrics Journal" (2004), Vol. 7, pp. 322-340;...

We derive the sampling variances of generalized entropy and Atkinson indices when estimated from complex survey data, and show how they can be calculated straightforwardly using widely available software. We also show that, when the same approach is used to derive variance formulae for the...

The paper investigates the causes of currency crises in emerging markets. We estimate the probability of a currency crisis by applying maximum smoothly simulated likelihood to a dynamic LDV model. This approach allows us to take explicit account of the existence of intertemporal links between...

The hazard rate of investment is derived within a real-option model, and its properties are analysed so as to directly study the relation between uncertainty and investment. Maximum likelihood estimates of the hazard are calculated using a sample of multinational enterprises (MNEs) that invested...

This paper tests hysteresis effects in unemployment using panel data for 19 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1956-2001. The tests exploit the cross-sectional variations of the series, and additionally, allow for a different number of...

This paper argues that the value added score published for all publicly funded secondary schools in England is an unreliable indicator of school performance. A substantial proportion of the between-school variation in the value added score is accounted for by factors outside the school's...