The declared objective of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is to promote free trade between member states. Nonetheless, an exhaustive study of bilateral merchandise trade based on a large panel data set led Rose (2004) to conclude that...

Bandit problems provide an interesting and widely-used setting for the study of sequential decision-making. In their most basic form, bandit problems require people to choose repeatedly between a small number of alternatives, each of which has an unknown rate of providing reward. We investigate...

The paper introduces for the most frequently used three-dimensional fixed effects panel data models the appropriate Within estimators. It analyzes the behaviour of these estimators in the case of no-self-flow data, unbalanced data and dynamic autoregressive models.

The paper introduces for the most frequently used three-dimensional panel data sets several random effects model specifications. It derives appropriate estimation methods for the balanced and unbalanced cases. An application is also presented where the bilateral trade of 20 EU countries is...

Even in the face of a continuously changing economic environment, interest rates often remain unadjusted for long periods. When rates are moved, the norm is for a series of small unidirectional discrete basis-point changes. To explain these phenomena we suggest a two-equation system combining a...

We examine the dissent voting record of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its first decade. Probit estimates indicate the impact of career experience on dissent voting is negligible, whereas the impact of forecast inflation is pronounced. In addition to finding a role for...

This paper uses a natural field experiment to better understand why individuals tend to select items at the top of lists. After randomizing the order in which new economics research papers are presented in email alerts and measuring the subsequent downloads, we provide robust evidence of...

The government of Jamaica enacted a strategic master plan in 2010 to encourage the tourism sector’s inclusiveness by enhancing the participation of villas and other small lodging accommodations, increasing the use of locally grown produce, and encouraging commercial activity with formal and...

Using a sample of 130 countries over the period 2004-2019, we revisit the development impact of foreign direct investment (FDI), but this time examine the role of research and development (R&D) in this framework. We use bilateral investment treaties (BITs) as a novel instrument for FDI. We find...

We explore the possibility that a systematic relationship exists between employment within a particular type of contract and risk preference. We exploit a set of proxies for risk preference, whereby some of the proxies capture risk loving behaviour (expenditure on gambling, smoking and alcohol)...