The international development community has used the World Bank's Statistical Capacity Index since its inception in 2004. The Sustainable Development Goals create new challenges for national statistical systems to produce high-quality and internationally comparable data. This paper reviews...

Bayesian dynamic linear models (DLM) are useful in time series modelling because of the flexibility that they present in obtaining a good forecast. They are based on a decomposition of the relevant factors which explain the behavior of the series through a series of state parameters....

In this article we examine how model selection in neural networks can be guided by statistical procedures such as hypotheses tests, information criteria and cross validation. The application of these methods in neural network models is discussed, paying attention especially to the identification...

Using a retrospective monthly calendarium of individuals' major economic activities, this paper characterizes the monthly employment and unemployment rates and the monthly transition intensities between the states of employment, unemployment, and out-of-thelabor- force for the German labor...

Administrative data are considered the "gold standard" when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on the potential problems with administrative records or their implications for econometric estimates. We explore issues with administrative data using the FoodAPS, a unique...

This paper proposes a test for missing at random (MAR). The MAR assumption is shown to be testable given instrumental variables which are independent of response given potential outcomes. A nonparametric testing procedure based on integrated squared distance is proposed. The statistic's...