This paper extracts measures of monetary policy surprises for Australia, Canada and the United States using a latent factor framework. We distinguish monetary policy surprises which occur when central banks report new assessments of the economy (or do not reinforce changes expected by market...

This paper compares alternative estimation procedures for multi-level factor models which imply blocks of zero restrictions on the associated matrix of factor loadings. We suggest a sequential least squares algorithm for minimizing the total sum of squared residuals and a two-step approach based...

We analyze the relationships between biodiesel, ethanol and related fuels and agricultural commodities with a use of minimal spanning trees and hierarchical trees and Granger causality. We construct this trees for different frequencies (weekly, monthly and quarterly). We find that in short-term,...

In this paper, we analyze the relationships between the prices of biodiesel, ethanol and related fuels and agricultural commodities with a use of minimal spanning trees and hierar- chical trees. We find that in short-term, both ethanol and biodiesel are very weakly connected with the other...

Understanding companies' preferences for various domestic policy instruments is crucial to designing and planning Sectoral Market Mechanism (SMM) in China. Based on a detailed overview of domestic policy instruments under SMM, this paper evaluates corporate preferences for diverse domestic...

We estimate changes in the volatility of firm-level sales, earnings and employment growth of US firms. Our method differs from existing measures for firm-level sales and employment volatility in that it not only captures longer-run changes in volatility, but also measures cyclical changes in...

We document how firm-specific volatility in sales, earnings and employment growth evolved year by year in Japan. Our volatility measure also indicates the evolution of firm turnover. We find that patterns in firm-specific volatility have changed when macroeconomic circumstances have. Firm...

Civilian suffering from civil war extends well after the ceasefire. Reliable ways to measure perceived safety are needed in post-conflict settings, since the extent to which safety improves may be crucial in maintaining the peace. Yet obtaining truthful reports from respondents in these settings...

This paper re-examines the sources of inequality in Vietnam, a transitional economy with large reductions in poverty from recent and dramatic economic growth, but vastly unequal gains across ethnic groups. Using an instrumental variable approach to provide consistent estimators of explanatory...

In 1986, Mosely first drew attention to an apparent paradox in the performance of international aid. Microeconomic data from evaluations of aid financed projects showed a majority of projects were successful, whereas macroeconomic data from regressions of aid on growth were discouraging. The...