A large literature on persistence finds that many modern outcomes strongly reflect characteristics of the same places in the distant past. These studies typically combine unusually high t statistics with severe spatial autocorrelation in residuals, suggesting that some findings may be artefacts...

Despite a growing literature on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, scant evidence currently exists on its impacts on air quality. We offer the first study that provides cross-national evidence on the causal impacts of COVID-19 on air pollution. We assemble a rich database consisting of daily,...

This paper analyzes human capital externalities from high-skilled workers by applying functional regression to precise geocoded register data. Functional regression enables us to describe the concentration of high-skilled workers around workplaces as continuous curves and to efficiently estimate...

This paper investigates differences in outcomes between historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) and traditional college and universities (non-HBCUs) using a standard Oaxaca/Blinder decomposition. This method decomposes differences in observed educational and labor market outcomes...

Rapid urbanization has resulted in sudden degradation of the environmental quality of urban settlements, which are difficult to measure and quantify. The present study attempts to provide an assessment of the environmental quality by developing environmental quality index (EQI) for the Ernakulam...

The recent rise of digital technology has enabled the development of various online platforms that gave rise to the so-called sharing economy. Academics suggest that this economy is causing a switch in consumer behaviour. This paper attempts to test this hypothesis by fitting a smooth transition...

In this paper we assess the merits of financial condition indices constructed using simple averages versus a more sophisticated alternative that uses factor models with time varying parameters. Our analysis is based on data for 18 advanced and emerging economies at a monthly frequency covering...

This article provides new evidence on various factors that affect residential energy consumption in France. We model the consumption of residential energy in dwellings and apply a bottom-up statistical approach. Our quantile regression model uses an innovative variable selection method via the...

Berger and Pope (2011) show that being slightly behind increases the likelihood of winning in professional and collegiate basketball. We extend their analysis to large samples of Australian football, American football and rugby matches, but find little to no evidence of such an effect for these...

This paper empirically investigates the change in the relationship between economic growth and financial development as ECOWAS economies grow over the period 1991-2017. The methodology of analysis is the quantile regression, which allows determining the impact of financial development at...

This paper examines which measures of financial conditions are informative about the tail risks to output growth in the euro area. The Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS) is more informative than indicators focusing on narrower segments of financial markets or their simple aggregation...

In a 'smart' electricity distribution network, flexible distribution resources (FDRs) can be coordinated to improve efficiency. But coordination enables whoever controls such resources to exercise market power. The paper establishes the following efficiency rankings of market structures:...

The beta dispersion, which is the spread of betas on a stock market, can be interpreted as a measure of market vulnerability. This study examines the economic idea of the beta dispersion and its application as a market return predictor. Based on the empirical beta dispersion observed in the US...

In this paper, we apply Bayesian averaging of classical estimates (BACE) and Bayesian model averaging (BMA) as an automatic modeling procedures for two well-known macroeconometric models: UK demand for narrow money and long-term inflation. Empirical results verify the correctness of BACE and BMA...

The number of Covid-19 cases is increasing dramatically worldwide. Therefore, the availability of reliable forecasts for the number of cases in the coming days is of fundamental importance. We propose a simple statistical method for short-term real-time forecasting of the number of Covid-19...

In Germany, package holidays are an important driver of consumer prices. Several challenges arise when measuring the price development of these bundled travel and accommodation services, such as the quality of accommodation and the timing of booking. Statistical practices are currently based on...

We examine the health impacts of early access to public pension wealth by exploiting a unique policy in Singapore allowing individuals to withdraw a proportion of their pension savings after their 55th birthday. For the identification, we employ a regression discontinuity design by comparing...

This study develops cluster robust inference methods for panel quantile regression (QR) models with individual fixed effects, allowing for temporal correlation within each individual. The conventional QR standard errors can seriously underestimate the uncertainty of estimators and, therefore,...

According to official poverty estimates in Mexico, more than 50 percent of the population was poor in 2016, half of which could not even afford the basic food basket. Whereas most of the existing research analyses poverty focusing exclusively on average income or on the expected probability of...