Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive, with household survey and administrative tax data often disagreeing on levels and trends. We carried out a series of focus groups to learn how self-employed independent contractors speak about their work....

Although widely studied, deforestation remains a common research topic. The relationship between economic development and deforestation is still in question. This paper presents a meta-analysis of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) studies for deforestation. Using 69 studies, offering 547...

This paper uses Monte Carlo simulation analysis to study the finite-sample behavior of bootstrap estimators and tests in the linear heteroskedastic model. We consider four different bootstrapping schemes, three of them specifically tailored to handle heteroskedasticity. Our results show that...

Much of economists' statistical work centers on testing hypotheses in which parameter values are partitioned between a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis in order to distinguish two views about the world. Our traditional procedures are based on the probabilities of a test statistic...

Motivated by theoretical analysis and unique Korean equity fund market data, this paper provides new evidence of herding between individual investors and institutional investors in the equity fund market along with related issues of risk aversion, cumulative performance, and the business cycle...

We propose a new method to assess sovereign risk in Eurozone countries using an approach that relies on consistent tests for stochastic dominance efficiency. The test statistics and the estimators are computed using mixed integer programming methods. Our analysis is based on macroeconomic...

In this note, I extend the optimal asymptotic least squares estimation framework to deal with singularities in the asymptotic covariance of the distance function. Further, the relationship between the asymptotic least squares and maximum likelihood estimation frameworks in such a singular set-up...

We analyze extreme movements of the main stocks market indexes in the European Union. We find that the Sweden and UK markets are the preferred ones for risk averse investors since they present the best risk-return performance. Moreover, the UK market is found to have a very low dependence with...

This paper proposes a cumulative sum (CUSUM) based statistic to test if there is a common variance change-point in panel data models. Asymptotic distribution is derived under the null hypothesis and the consistency of the test is proven under the alternative hypothesis. Monte Carlo experiment is...