The discussion about the use of semiparametric analysis in empirical research in economics is as old as the methods are. This article can certainly not be more than a small contribution to the polemic question how useful is non- or semiparametric statistics for applied econometrics. The goal is...

Imagine we have two different samples and are interested in doing semi- or nonparametric regression analysis in each of them, possibly on the same econometric model. In this article we consider the problem of testing whether a specific covariate has different impacts on the regression curve in...

In many countries the demand for health care services is of increasing importance. Especially in the industrialized world with a changing demographic structure social insurances and politics face real challenges. Reliable predictors of those demand functions will therefore become invaluable...

A reliable prediction of unconditional welfare distributions, like income or consumption, is essential for welfare analysis, and in particular for inequality, poverty or development studies. Where observations of expenditures or income are missing, the mean prediction based on available...