This paper extends US evidence on the ability of current dividend yields to predict future equity returns in the G5 countries. By using non-parametric methods, evidence of a similar non- linear structure is found in all the countries analysed. This casts doubt on the linear framework adopted in...

Granger causality tests are widely used in applied economics as a way of establishing if a variable has been a leading indicator of another over the past. However, like most statistical tests, Granger causality tests require that the relationship between the variables remains stable over the...

One of the stylized facts of unemployment is that shifts in its mean rate between decades and half-decades account for most of its variance. In this paper, the authors use a statistical analysis based on switching regression models and nonparametric density estimation techniques to identify the...

This paper considers the role of international openness in facilitating the convergence of average income per capita between countries. The statistical technique of Discriminant Analysis is used to sort economies into groups of open and closed on the basis of a number of measures of the stance...

The convergence hypothesis in growth theory implies that the frequency of the density distribution of GDP in a cross-section of countries tends to approach unimodality as we move forward in time. The convergence theory in a cross-section of 119 countries is tested by means of bootstrap...

Intertemporal models of the current account suggest that temporary income shocks are fully reflected in a country's net foreign asset position, so that agents invest abroad any savings generated by a positive income shock. On the other hand, a stylised fact in international economics is that...

Household indebtedness has grown sharply in the United Kingdom in recent years. This paper proposes a framework for understanding this based on a model in which households are assumed to plan their lifetime spending rationally, allowing for bequests to future generations. The model is set up to...

The unemployment rate is commonly assumed to measure labour availability, but this ignores the fact that potential workers frequently come from outside the current set of labour market participants, the so-called inactive. The UK Longitudinal Labour Force Survey includes information that can be...

It is widely accepted that wage comparisons with other firms play an important part in wage bargaining, but what is less clear is precisely why these comparisons are important. There are two main explanations. First, that fairness considerations mean workers are unwilling to see their wage fall...

This paper revisits the issue of long-horizon equity return predictability for the United Kingdom in the context of the dynamic dividend discount model of Campbell and Shiller. This model attributes predictable variation in equity prices to predictable variation in expected returns. The model is...