Recent theoretical developments in growth models, triggered particularly by unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off is a defining element in our explanation of a transition from Malthusian stagnation to a sustained growth path. This paper presents a model...

In this paper we study risk-neutral densities (RNDs) for the German stock market. The use of option prices allows us to quantify the risk-neutral probabilities of various levels of the DAX index. For the period from December 1995 to November 2001, we implement the mixture of log-normals model...

We evaluate how deviations from normality may affect the allocation of assets. A Taylor expansion of expected utility allows us to focus on certain moments and to compute numerically the optimal portfolio allocation. A decisive advantage of our approach is that it remains operational even if a...

Using two data series, namely GDP and the index of industrial production, we study the relationship between output variability and the growth rate of output. Ng-Perron unit root test shows that the growth rate of GDP is non-stationary but the growth rate of industrial output is stationary. Thus,...

Extant literature indicates that technology, and by implication its underlying knowledge base, determines long-run economic performance. Absent from the literature with respect to developing countries are quantitative assessments of the nexus between technology as knowledge and economic...

Tests for causality and rationality in the coffee futures market were carried out using data from the New York Market. Tests of causality indicated that futures prices strongly influence variations in spot price eight weeks or more to maturity. However, beginning seven weeks to maturity there...

The discovery of the dynamics of a time series requires construction of the transition density, 1-point densities and scaling exponents provide no knowledge of the dynamics. Time series require some sort of statistical regularity, otherwise there is no basis for analysis. We state the possible...

The effects of a specific religious tradition on the food prices establish the central theme of this paper. In specific, I investigate whether the month Ramadan has any effect on food prices. I perform the analysis under two alternative calendar conventions, namely the Gregorian and Hijri...

In this paper I propose a nonstandard t-test statistic for detecting level and trend breaks of I(0) series. Theoretical and limit-distribution critical values obtained from Montecarlo experimentation are supplied. The null hypothesis of anthropogenic versus natural causes of global warming is...

In this article the author examines, based on the inflation rate and unemployment rate registered in Romania during 1993-2004, how to show Okun's Law. Results consist of two distinct models explaining the dependency between the GDP’s growth rate of and the unemployment rate’s growth and vice...