Although the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries, two thirds of the land area are still under agricultural use. Major socio-economic changes are however expected for the agricultural sector. The increasing globalisation of economic relations in agriculture and the possible...

This study analyses the empirical interaction between real corporate credit, real income, real stock prices, the short-term interest rate and inflation for the Netherlands and the USA. The framework is based on a five-variable structural vector error correction model which identifies the...

The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and urban functions are constantly claiming more space. This continuing urbanisation has lead to a growing concern for the preservation of open space. A loss of open space does not only mean a fragmentation of ecosystems...

The agricultural sector in the Netherlands has lost much of its importance over the last 50 years in terms of the number of people involved and its relative contribution to the economy - even though production is still increasing. Yet, the area under agricultural use has changed relatively...

In a factor-augmented regression, the forecast of a variable depends on a few factors estimated from a large number of predictors. But how does one determine the appropriate number of factors relevant for such a regression? Existing work has focused on criteria that can consistently estimate the...

This paper revisits inflation forecasting using reduced-form Phillips curve forecasts, that is, inflation forecasts that use activity and expectations variables. We propose a Phillips-curve-type model that results from averaging across different regression specifications selected from a set of...

In this paper, we seek to produce forecasts of commodity price movements that can systematically improve on naive statistical benchmarks. We revisit how well changes in commodity currencies perform as potential efficient predictors of commodity prices, a view emphasized in the recent literature....

We suggest a way to perform parsimonious instrumental variables estimation in the presence of many, and potentially weak, instruments. In contrast to standard methods, our approach yields consistent estimates when the set of instrumental variables complies with a factor structure. In this sense,...

This paper reexamines recent results on the predictability of nominal exchange rate returns by means of fundamental models. Using a monthly sample of the post-Bretton Woods period we show that the in-sample fit between long-horizon exchange rate returns and various models is not significant if...