We show that high-frequency private payroll microdata can help forecast labor market conditions. Payroll employment is perhaps the most reliable real-time indicator of the business cycle and is therefore closely followed by policymakers, academia, and financial markets. Government statistical...

In this paper we propose a new explanation for Favourite-Longshot Bias (FLB). FLB refers to a well known phenomenon, pervasive in many sport betting markets. As measured by historically realised gains, bets on favourites appear to be more favourable than longshot bets. We show that FLB can be...

Banks play a vital role in strengthening the financial system of a country; hence, their survival is decisive for the stability of national economies. Therefore, analyzing the survival probability of the banks is an essential and continuing research activity. However, the current literature...

Proxies for race are commonly used in settings where race cannot be observed directly. In the context of small business lending, we examine the standard race prediction algorithm (BISG), which regulators use to assess compliance with fair lending laws. The algorithm relies on an individual’s...

When race is not directly observed, regulators and analysts commonly predict it using algorithms based on last name and address. In small business lending--where regulators assess fair lending law compliance using the Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding (BISG) algorithm--we document large...

The Conference of European Statistics Stakeholders (CESS) brings together European stakeholders, such as official statisticians, methodologists, private data producers/providers and data users. The conference, held biennially, gives participants an opportunity to discuss user needs and exchange...

We examine whether inflation expectations obtained by open- and closed-ended questions lead to different inflation expectations through a randomized controlled trial. We find that different questionnaires measure significantly different inflation expectations, especially in the short term. We...