Primarily using data from the 2010 European Social Survey, we analyze intergenerational educational persistence in 20 European countries, studying cross-country and cross-cluster differences in intergenerational mobility; the role of gender in determining educational persistence across...

Debating over efficiency-enhancing but inequality-increasing reforms accounts for the routine business of democratic institutions. Fernandez and Rodrik (1991) hold that anti-reform bias can be attributed to individual-specific uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses resulting...

This paper considers empirically whether preference-based (empirical) power indices differ significantly from their preference-free (theoretical) counterparts. Drawing on the to date most comprehensive sample of EU Council votes (1993-2011), we use item-response models to estimate the EU27...

This paper develops a unified framework for fixed and random effects estimation of higher-order spatial autoregressive panel data models with spatial autoregressive disturbances and heteroskedasticity of unknown form in the idiosyncratic error component. We derive the moment conditions and...

This paper puts forward a Bayesian Global Vector Autoregressive Model with Common Stochastic Volatility (B-GVAR-CSV). We assume that country specific volatility is driven by a single latent stochastic process, which simplifies the analysis and implies significant computational gains. Apart from...

The widespread use of composite indices has often been motivated by their practicality to quantify qualitative data in an easy and intuitive way. At the same time, this approach has been challenged due to the subjective and partly ad hoc nature of computation, aggregation and weighting...

This paper evaluates the monetary and macroprudential policies that mitigate the procyclicality arising from the interlinkages between current account deficits and financial vulnerabilities. We develop a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with heterogeneous...

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of EU member states' power, the EU's capability to act (efficiency), and the proportionality of the voting system in the Council of Ministers from the treaties of Rome in 1958 till the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 and beyond, using a...

We provide a systematic comparison of the out-of-sample forecasts based on multivariate macroeconomic models and forecast combinations for the euro against the US dollar, the British pound, the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen. We use profit maximization measures based on directional accuracy...

This paper studies the gender wealth gap using 2010 Household Finance and Consumption Survey data for 15 European countries, and finds that households with only one male adult have more net wealth than households with one female adult, and that households with an adult couple have the highest...