I explore the implications of the lumpy labor adjustment as a propagation mechanism for aggregate dynamics. The model I use nests the basic RBC model with a staggeredjob-turnover in the spirit of Taylor (1980) and Calvo (1983). It extends this approach by introducing a Weibull-distributed labor...

Using an administrative data set containing daily information on individual workers' employment histories, we investigate how workers' labour market transitions are affected by international outsourcing. In order to do so, we estimate hazard rate models for match separations, as well as for...

By using a unique data set of single-family house transactions, we examine theaccuracy of the cost and sales comparison approach over different forecast horizons. We find that sales comparison values provide better long-term forecaststhan cost values if the economic loss function is symmetric. A...

We present a comprehensive framework for Bayesian estimation of structural nonlinear dynamic economic models on sparse grids. The Smolyak operator underlying the sparse grids approach frees global approximation from the curse of dimensionality and we apply it to a Chebyshev approximation of the...

In this paper we adopt a principal components analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the term structure and employ autoregressive models (AR) to forecast principal components which, in turn, are used to forecast swap rates. Arguing in favor of structural variation, we propose data...

Numerous studies have tried to provide a better understanding of firm-level investment behaviour using econometric models. The model specification of more recent studies has been based on two main approaches. The first, the real options approach, focuses on irreversibility and uncertainty in...

A small strand of recent literature is occupied with identifying simultaneity in multipleequation systems through autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. Since thisapproach assumes that the structural innovations are uncorrelated, any contemporaneousconnection of the endogenous variables...

In recent years, support vector regression (SVR), a novel neural network (NN) technique, has been successfully used for financial forecasting. This paper deals with the application of SVR in volatility forecasting. Based on a recurrent SVR, a GARCH method is proposed and is compared with a...

According to housing investment models, house prices and replacement costshould have an equilibrating relationship. Previous empirical work|mainlybased on aggregate-level data|has found only little evidence of such a relationship.By using a unique data set, covering transactions of...

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is an important tool in data analyses,particularly in social science. Usually four steps are carried out which contain alarge number of options. One important option is the number of factors and theassociation of variables with a factor. Our tools aim to...