We use realized volatility to study the influence of central bank interventions on the yen/dollar exchange rate. Realized volatility is a technical innovation that allows specifying a system of equations for returns, realized volatility, and interventions without endogeneity bias. We find that...

We forecast daily realized volatilities with linear and nonlinear models and evaluate the benefits of bootstrap aggregation (bagging) in producing more precise forecasts. We consider the linear autoregressive (AR) model, the Heterogeneous Autoregressive model (HAR), and a non-linear HAR model...

We study the simultaneous occurrence of long memory and nonlinear effects, such as structural breaks and thresholds, in autoregressive moving average (ARMA) time series models and apply our modeling framework to series of daily realized volatility. Asymptotic theory for the quasi-maximum...

The literature on excess return prediction has considered a wide array of estimation schemes, among them unrestricted and restricted regression coefficients. We consider bootstrap aggregation (bagging) to smooth parameter restrictions. Two types of restrictions are considered: positivity of the...

While up to the late 1990s Japanese foreign exchange intervention was fully sterilized, Japanese monetary authorities left foreign exchange intervention unsterilized when Japan entered the liquidity trap in 1999. According to previous research on foreign exchange intervention, unsterilized...

We study the stability of estimated linear statistical relations of global mean temperature and global mean sea level with regard to data revisions. Using four different model specifications proposed in the literature, we compare coefficient estimates and long-term sea level projections using...

This working paper analyzes paid and unpaid work-time inequalities among Bolivian urban adults using time use data from a 2001 household survey. We identified a gender-based division of labor characterized not so much by who does what type of work but by how much work of each type they do. There...

Using data from the Brazilian Census 2000 we estimate whether the distribution of the eligible population of the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC) would change after a modification in definition of family used to calculate family per capita income. Our results show that in 2000 the majority of...

The study examines a particular set of institutional determinants of inequality, the public pensions. It tests the hypothesis that different rules regarding a maximum limit for the value of benefits in the pension subsystem of public and private sector workers makes the system as a whole...

Using a factor decomposition of the Gini coefficient we measure the contribution to inequality of direct monetary transfers to and from the Brazilian State. Among the transfers from the State are wages of public workers, pensions and social assistance; the transfers to the State are direct taxes....