We present a statistical investigation on the domain of sex-related homicides. As general sociological and psychological theory on this specific type of crime is incomplete or even lacking, a data-driven approach is implemented. In detail, graphical modelling is applied to learn the dependency...

Recent monetary search and Calvo-type models predict that the relationship between inflation and price dispersion is U-shaped, implying an optimal rate of inflation above zero. Moreover, monetary search models emphasize a critical dependence of the real effects of inflation on sellers' market...

In 2007 and 2008 world food markets observed a significant price boom. Crop failures simultaneously occurring in some of the world's major production regions have been quoted as one factor among others for the price boom. Against this background, we analyse the stochasticity of crop yields in...

We study a matching model with heterogeneous agents, nontransferable utility and search frictions. Agents differ along a horizontal dimension (e.g. taste) and a vertical dimension (e.g. income). Agents' preferences coincide only in the vertical dimension. This approach introduces individual...

Generalized additive models (GAM) are multivariate nonparametric regressions for non-Gaussian responses including binary and count data. We propose a spline-backfitted kernel (SBK) estimator for the component functions. Our results are for weakly dependent data and we prove oracle efficiency....

We consider a difference based ridge regression estimator and a Liu type estimator of the regression parameters in the partial linear semiparametric regression model, y = Xβ + f + Both estimators are analysed and compared in the sense of mean-squared error. We consider the case of independent...

Due to dependency of energy demand on temperature, weather derivatives enable the effective hedging of temperature related fluctuations. However, temperature varies in space and time and therefore the contingent weather derivatives also vary. The spatial derivative price distribution involves a...

This note reconsiders communication between an informed expert and an uninformed decision maker with a strategic mediator in a discrete Crawford and Sobel (1982) setting. We show that a strategic mediator may improve communication even when he is biased into the same direction as the expert. The...

Human capital investment is formed through households' endogenous decision, and competes with physical capital investment. Idiosyncratic shock shifts the skilled labor share and changes tightness in both skilled and unskilled markets. Given inelastic labor participation, the model can generate...

We measure willingness to pay for privacy in a field experiment. Participants were given the choice to buy a maximum of one DVD from one of two online stores. One store consistently required more sensitive personal data than the other, but otherwise the stores were identical. In one treatment,...