This paper presents new evidence on the role of cognitive skills in promoting economic growth rate, using a within country dataset (Brazilian municipalities’ dataset) and nonparametric kernel regression estimation with mixed data.

This article generalizes the conditional stochastic kernel developed by Quah (1997, 1998) for multiple and more general conditioning schemes using nonparametric conditional density estimation. We utilize this methodology to analyze conditional convergence in income for Brazilian municipalities...

We introduce SV models with Markov regime changing state equation (SVMRS) to investigate the important properties of volatility, high persistence and smoothness. With the quasi-ML approach proposed in our study, we showed that volatility is far less persistent and smooth than the GARCH or SV...

In this article we analyze the evolution of relative per capita income distribution of Brazilian municipalities over the period 1970-1996. Our analyses are based on nonparametric methodologies and do not assume probability distributions or functional forms for the data. We have carried out two...