Does after-school care provision promote mothers’ employment and balance the allocation of paid work among parents of schoolchildren? We address this question by exploiting variation in cantonal (state) regulations of after-school care provision in Switzerland. To establish exogeneity of...

We introduce a novel semi-parametric estimator of American option prices in discrete time. The specification is based on a parameterized stochastic discount factor and is nonparametric w.r.t. the historical dynamics of the Markovian state variables. The historical transition density estimator...

We explore the emissions income relationship for CO2 in OECD countries using various modelling strategies.Even for this relatively homogeneous sample, we find that the inverted-U-shaped curve is quite sensitive to the degree of heterogeneity included in the panel estimations.This finding is...

In this paper we examine the usefulness of multivariate semi-parametric GARCH models for portfolio selection under a Value-at-Risk (VaR) constraint. First, we specify and estimate several alternative multivariate GARCH models for daily returns on the S\&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes. Examining the...

This paper introduces non-parametric estimators for upper and lower tail dependence whose confidence intervals are obtained with a bootstrap method. We call these estimators "Naïve estimators" as they represent a discretization of Joe's formulae (1997)\nocite{Joe} linking copulas to tail...

In this paper we examine the usefulness of multivariate semi-parametric GARCH models for portfolio selection under a Value-at-Risk (VaR) constraint. First, we specify and estimate several alternative multivariate GARCH models for daily returns on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes. Examining the...

Extreme-value theory and corresponding analysis is an issue extensively applied in many different fields. The central point of this theory is the estimation of a parameter γ, known as the extreme-value index. In this paper we review several extreme-value index estimators, ranging from the...

Despite the relevance of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for professional success, their formation is not yet fully understood. This study fills part of this gap by analyzing the role of sports club participation, one of the most popular extra-curricular activities, on children’s skill...

Despite the relevance of cognitive and non-cognitive skills for professional success, their formation is not yet fully understood. This study fills part of this gap by analyzing the role of sports club participation, one of the most popular extra-curricular activities, on children’s skill...