This paper is a first empirical attempt to investigate why politicians around the world have chosen to give up power to independent central banks, thereby reducing their ability to fine-tune the economy. A new data-set covering 132 countries, of which 89 countries had implemented such reforms,...

A difference-in-difference approach was used to investigate whether Central Bank Indepencence (CBI) reforms matter for inflation, based on a novel data set including the possible occurence of such reforms in 132 countries during the period 1980-2003. CBI-reforms are found to have contributed to...

This thesis consists of two empirically oriented papers on Central Bank Independence (CBI) Reforms. Paper [1] is an investigation of why politicians around the world have chosen to give up power to independent central banks, thereby reducing their ability to control the economy. A new data-set...

Using data on the occurrence of central bank independence (CBI) reforms in 131 countries during 1980-2005, we test whether they were important in reducing inflation and maintaining price stability. CBI reforms are found to have reduced inflation on average 3.31% when countries with historically...

Data on central bank independence (CBI) and implementation dates of CBI-reforms were used to investigate the relationship between CBI and a possible trade-off between inflation variability and output variability. No such trade-off was found, but there might still be stabilization gains from...

Novel empirical evidence indicates the importance of gender identity and gender norms on individuals’ financial risk-taking. Specifically, by use of matching and by dividing male and females into those with “traditional” versus “nontraditional” gender identities, comparison of average...

This paper studies the risk-return profile of centralized and decentralized banks. We address the conditions that favor a particular lending regime while acknowledging the effects on lending and returns caused by the course of the business cycle. To analyze these issues, we develop a model which...

This paper empirically tests whether an open limit order book contains information about future short-run stock price movements. To account for the discrete nature of price changes, the integer-valued autoregressive model of order one is utilized. A model transformation has an advantage over...

Generalized method of moments estimation and forecasting is introduced for very small samples when additional non-sample information is available. Small simulation experiments are conducted for the linear model with errors-in-variables and for a Poisson regression model. Two empirical...