The common approach in empirical capital structure research has been to study the determinants of optimal leverage by studying the association between observed leverage and a set of explanatory variables. This approach has two major shortcomings. First, the observed leverage need not necessarily...

This paper proposes several resampling algorithms suitable for error component models and evaluates them in the context of bootstrap testing. In short, all the algorithms work well and lead to tests with correct or close to correct size. There is thus little or no reason not to use the bootstrap...

In this paper we consider the fourth moment structure of a class of first-order Exponential GARCH models. This class contains as special cases both the standard Exponential GARCH model and the symmetric and asymmetric Logarithmic GARCH one. Conditions for the existence of any arbitrary moment...

This paper studies the relation between fund performance and fund attributes in the Swedish market. Performance is measured as the alpha in a linear regression of fund returns on several benchmark assets, allowing for time-varying betas. The estimated performance is then used in a...

We study diversification within the real estate industry because of its relative transparency: portfolio management of assets with well-defined market prices. Diversification is over property types and geographical regions. The major cause of the diversification discount is not diversification...

The existence of spillover efficiency benefits to host country economies from inward foreign direct investment(FDI) are well documented in the literature, particularly for economically developed host economies. The determinantsof the size and scope of the spillover benefits have also been...

This paper is concerned with empirical measurement of patterns of productivity growth by means of competing panel data models of technical change. We argue that short term analysis must rely on models of technical change which are more flexible than the standard time trend model, because...

This paper reviews the argument that high long-term unemployment in Europe is caused by generous social safety nets in times of economic turbulence. We report on the empirical evidence of a more turbulent economic environment and present the theoretical arguments that establish a link between...

In this paper, new noncausality tests relying on a general nonlinear framework are proposed and their performance studied by a Monte Carlo experiment and a variety of nonlinear artificial series. Two of the tests are based on a Taylor expansion of the nonlinear model around a given point in the...