This paper examines the impact of demographic factors on saving, investment, and external balances. We derive a number of semi-structural equations from national accounting principle and the principle that external balances for the world as a whole must sum to zero. The resulting equations...

In this paper we explore the implication of a morbidity risk for the relationship between longevity and annuitization. We divide old-age life into two periods with uncertain survival from the end of the first to the end of the second. We show that a rise in the survival rate causes different...

There are two main types of data sources of income distributions in China: household survey data and grouped data. Household survey data are typically available for isolated years and individual provinces. In comparison, aggregate or grouped data are typically available more frequently and...

Gemäss Angaben des BFS nahmen die gesamten nominalen Gesundheitsausgaben im Jahr 2019 gegenüber dem Vorjahr um 2.8% zu und somit etwas weniger stark als im Durchschnitt der 10 Jahre zuvor (3.2%). Das Verhältnis der Gesundheitsausgaben zum Bruttoinlandprodukt (BIP) betrug im Jahr 2019 11.3%....

This paper documents a comparative application of algorithms to deal with the problem of missing values in higher frequency data sets. We refer to Swiss business tendency survey (BTS) data which are conducted in both monthly and quarterly frequency, where an information sub-set is collected at...

Gemäss BFS nahmen die gesamten nominalen Gesundheitsausgaben im Jahr 2021 gegenüber dem Vorjahr um 5.9% zu, wobei das Verhältnis der Gesundheitsausgaben zum Bruttoinlandprodukt (BIP) 11.6% betrug. Die gesamten nominalen Gesundheitsausgaben nahmen der Prognose der KOF zufolge im Jahr 2022 mit...

We evaluate nowcasts and one- to four-quarter-ahead forecasts of Swiss full time equivalent jobs from 1998-2011, comparing forecasts of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute and of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs with the outcome of the reference series. Both forecasts are biased downward,...

From a theoretical perspective, the output gap is probably the most comprehensive and convincing concept to describe the cyclical position of an economy. Unfortunately, for practical purposes, the concept depends on the determination of potential output, which is an inherently unobservable...

The paper describes tests of hypotheses from economic history concerning the significance of financial development as a determinant of economic growth. It goes beyond the existing studies in drawing on a large panel data set covering 93 countries from 1970-90 and includes a new proxy for the...