This paper examines how the receipt of the age-determined Russian state pension impacts the incomes, working hours, self-reported wellbeing, self-employed home production, and health behaviors of individuals. Household panel data spanning 2006-2011 is employed. Regression discontinuity...

In this paper we use a long memory framework to examine the validity of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis using both monthly and quarterly data for a panel of 47 countries over a fifty year period (1957 to 2009). The analysis focusses on the long memory parameter d that allows us to...

In this paper we compare the welfare effects of unemployment insurance (UI) with an universal basic income (UBI) system in an economy with idiosyncratic shocks to employment. Both policies provide a safety net in the face of idiosyncratic shocks. While the unemployment insurance program should...

Using both standard regressions and Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo estimation methods from a Bayesian perspective and a sample of 39 countries for 1981-2006, we re-examine the role of central-bank independence (CBI) in macroeconomic outcomes. Control variables commonly used in the literature are...

We study the implications of having different sources of nominal rigidities on the relationship between productivity growth and shocks volatility in a model with pro-cyclical R&D and imperfect competition in goods and labour markets. We show that the effects of uncertainty on long-term growth...

System of panel models are popular models in applied sciences and the question of spatial errors has created the recent demand for spatial system estimation of panel models. Therefore we propose new diagnostic methods to explore if the spatial component will change significantly the outcome of...

In this paper we present the current crisis of the Italian economy as a phase of a major systemic decline. The social political system has led to a framework that has violated the fundamentals of sustained economic growth. An unhealthy implicit contract between the social-political elites and...

This paper shows that economic fundamentals can generate reliable out-of-sample forecasts for exchange rates when prediction is based on a "kitchen-sink" regression that incorporates multiple predictors. The key to establishing predictability is estimating the kitchen-sink regression with the...

An expanding literature articulates the view that Taylor rules are helpful in predicting exchange rates. In a changing world however, Taylor rule parameters may be subject to structural instabilities, for example during the Global Financial Crisis. This paper forecasts exchange rates using such...

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the time-series predictive ability of foreign exchange risk measures on the return to the carry trade, a popular investment strategy that borrows in low-interest currencies and lends in high-interest currencies. Using quantile regressions, we nd...