We estimate the costs of occupational mobility using a novel approach that relies on aggregate flows of workers across occupations rather than on wage data. The theoretical underpinnings for this approach are derived from a model of occupation choice that delivers a gravity equation linking...

In this paper we provide several applications of Gram-Charlier expansions in financial derivative pricing. We first give an exposition on how to calculate swaption prices under a two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR2) model. Then we apply this method to an extended version of the model (CIR2++)....

There is evidence to suggest that a single factor of duration running on single time scale is not adequate to capture the dynamics of the duration process of financial transaction data. This assertion is motivated by the observation that some existing one-factor stochastic duration models have...

We investigate the nature of sovereign credit risk for selected Asian and European countries based on a set of sovereign CDS data over an eight-year period that includes the episode of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. The principal component analysis results indicate that there exists...

There is a view that the financial sector of the post-war British economy was in need of reform that was postponed to the detriment of growth for 30 years until liberalisation started in full earnest after the election of 1979. There is another side of the story in this comparison. The first...

Purpose-This study presents an empirical model designed to forecast bank credit ratings. For this reason we use the long term ratings provided by Fitch in 2012. Our sample consists of 92 U.S. banks and publicly available information from their financial statements from 2008 to 2011. Methodology...

The cyclical properties of the annual growth of the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) and their implications for short-to-medium term forecasting performance are investigated. We show that the BDI has a cyclical pattern which has been stable except for a period after the 2007 crisis. This pattern has...

We study the effects of two measures of information dissemination on the determination of systemic risk. One measure is print-media consumer sentiment based while the other is volatility based. We find evidence that while the volatility measure (VIX) of future expectations has a more significant...

Empirical assessments of the forecasting power of spatial panel data econometric models are still scarcely available. Moreover, several methodological contributions rely on simulated data to showcase the potential of proposed methods. While simulations may be useful to evaluate the properties of...

Self-employment is often seen as an attractive alternative to wage employment, despite lower welfare protection, higher risks, and more required effort than in the latter. It is then important to investigate why individuals choose self-employment. In addition to potential earnings, other factors...