In this paper we develop a simple model of the relationship between financial market development and investment by entrepreneurs in the presence of a Central Bank. The model analyzes how the level of financial development affects the way credit spreads, and therefore the volume of credit and...

This paper explores the relationship between employment protection legislation (EPL) and the share of employment in the IT-sector. Evidence from several OECD countries suggests that the importance of the IT-sector is smaller in economies with high levels of EPL than in economies with low levels....

This paper explores the role of underground economic activities as an explanation of differences in registered aggregate fluctuations. In order to do so, we introduce an underground economy sector in an otherwise standard Real Business Cycle model and calibrate it to the USA economy. We find...

This paper examines several US monthly financial time series data using fractional integration and cointegration techniques. The univariate analysis based on fractional integration aims to determine whether the series are I(1) (in which case markets might be efficient) or alternatively I(d) with...

A new automatic method based on the wavelet and Hilbert transforms for measuring the motor unit action potential (MUAP) duration is presented in this work. A total of 182 MUAPs from two different muscles were analysed. The average MUAP waveform was wavelet-transfomed, and a particular scale of...

We propose a theoretical method to catch politicians' fiscal attitude concerning deficits and debt based on the analysis of the political discourse. We describe the methodological steps used to obtain it. The methodology is applied to the case of US President during the period 1920 to 2008. The...

This paper analyses airline accidents data from 1927-2006. The fractional integration methodology is adopted. It is shown that airline accidents are persistent and (fractionally) cointegrated with airline traffic. Thus, there exists an equilibrium relation between air accidents and airline...

This paper deals with the estimation of time trends in temperature anomaly series. However, instead of imposing that the estimated residuals from the time trends are I(0) stationary, we allow them to be fractionally integrated. In this context, a new procedure for testing fractional integration...

This paper deals with the analysis of the monthly structure of sunspot numbers using a new technique based on cyclical long range dependence. The results show that sunspot numbers have a periodicity of 130 months, but more importantly, that the series is highly persistent, with an order of...

We estimate a New-Keynesian macro model accommodating regime-switching behavior in monetary policy and in macro shocks. Key to our estimation strategy is the use of survey-based expectations for inflation and output. Output and inflation shocks shift to the low volatility regime around 1985 and...