Prediction markets - markets used to forecast future events - have been used to accurately forecast the outcome of political contests, sporting events, and, occasionally, economic outcomes. This chapter summarizes the latest research on prediction markets in order to further their utilization by...

Reliable early warning signals are essential for timely implementation of macroeconomic and macro-prudential policies. This paper presents an early warning system as a set of multi-period forecasts of indicators of tail real and financial (systemic) risks. Forecasts are obtained from: (a)...

In the paper we analyze determinants of the capital market beta risk in Poland in the monthly period 1996-2002. The beta risk is measured as a time-varying parameter estimated in a regression of the Warsaw stock indexes (WIG and WIG20 separately) on major foreign stock market indexes (DJIA,...

We assess the sustainability of the public finances of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain (GIIPS), allowing for possible non-linearities in the form of threshold behaviour of the fiscal authorities. We provide some evidence of fiscal sustainability when debt gets “too high” relative...

This paper analyses the effect of information disseminated by the Internet on voting behavior. We address endogeneity in Internet availability by exploiting regional and technological peculiarities of the preexisting voice telephony network that hinder the roll-out of fixed-line broadband...

We study the association between resource rents and political stability, highlighting the importance of the distribution of political power as a mediating factor. We present a simple theoretical model showing that increased rents are likely to be positively associated with the stability of a...

In this paper we consider the problem of interpreting the signs of the estimated coefficients in multivariate time series regressions where the regressors are correlated. Using a continuous time model, we argue that focussing on the signs of individual coefficients in such regressions could be...

Production capital and technology, fundamental to understanding output and productivity growth, are unobserved except at disaggregated levels and must be estimated prior to being used in empirical analysis. We develop and apply a new estimation method, based on advances in economics, statistics,...

In this paper we present simulations of economic performance of the Polish economy based on a quarterly econometric model. The model consists of 22 stochastic equations, which link the financial market with the real economy. The purpose of the research is to present effects of changes to...

We discuss a simple model of choices of joint consumption by a working couple who place maintenance of their marriage (relationship) above all else. Any proposal made by one partner seeking to provide maximal utility to the other so as to preserve the marriage, in the case where preferences of...