In this paper, we investigate the forecasting ability of the yield curve in terms of the U.S. real GDP cycle. More specifically, within a Machine Learning (ML) framework, we use data from a variety of short (treasury bills) and long term interest rates (bonds) for the period from 1976:Q3 to...

A healthy and stable banking system resilient to financial crises is a prerequisite for sustainable growth. Minimization of a) the associated systemic risk and b) of the contagion effect in a banking crisis is a necessary condition to achieve this goal. The Central Bank is in charge of this...

Most of the currently known option pricing techniques utilize the underlying asset price and strike price, its volatility and time to maturity, as well as the risk freerate. However, both the volatility and the risk-free rate are anticipated via the price move of the underlying asset. Looking at...

The magnitude of the recent financial crisis, which started from the U.S. and expanded in Europe, change the perspective on banking supervision. The recent consensus is that to preserve a healthy and stable banking network, the monitoring of all financial institutions should be under a single...

We explore gender differences in preferences related to altruism, fairness, cooperation, trust, coordination, risk and competitiveness in an experiment with a large random sample of the Swedish population. In addition to a baseline treatment, we have treatments where participants are primed with...

In this brief comment, we return to the question raised in Dahlberg, Edmark and Lundqvist (2012) concerning a causal relationship between ethnic diversity and preferences for redistribution. A re-analysis of their study indicates that the results are based on a severe sample selection bias and...

A model by Huebler and Jirjahn (2003) suggests that rent-seeking activities of works councils are more limited in establishments covered by collective bargaining. The model predicts that works councils should have a stronger productivity effect and a weaker wage effect in covered than in...

We study how financial market participants process news from four major central banks—the Bank of England (BoE), the Bank of Japan (BoJ), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Federal Reserve (Fed)—using a novel survey of 195 financial market participants from around the world. Our...

The literature on trade liberalization and environment has not considered federal structures. This paper shows how the design of environmental policy in a federal system has implications for the effects of trade reform. Trade liberalization leads to a decline in pollution taxes regardless of...

In this paper, I explore the determinants of foreign bias in international portfolio investment focusing on a behavioral explanation. Specifically, I investigate whether investors having a stronger uncertainty aversion perceive a foreign country to be more unfamiliar than those with less such...