This paper explores the degree to which imperfect information in the labour market regarding worker quality is likely to impact employment opportunities, as well as the wages associated with those opportunities. The primary purpose of this paper is to provide preliminary empirical evidence that...

Tobacco control policies have effectively raised the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products. However, these price increases have been shown to disproportionately fall upon poorer households, with fewer resources. In this analysis, we provide an initial indication of the effect increased...

In this paper we test the forecasting ability of three estimated financial conditions indices (FCIs) with respect to key macroeconomic variables of output growth, inflation and interest rates. We do this by forecasting the aforementioned macroeconomic variables based on the information contained...

This paper uses small set of variables-- real GDP, the inflation rate, and the short-term interest rate -- and a rich set of models -- athoeretical and theoretical, linear and nonlinear, as well as classical and Bayesian models -- to consider whether we could have predicted the recent downturn...

In this paper we examine the real estate returns predictability employing US REITs and a set of possible predictors for the period January 1991 to September 2013. To this end we employ several forecasting models to test for REITs predictability under a flexible framework that captures parameter...

This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic effects of uncertainty on the conditional volatility of US-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). To this end we employ three widely accepted US REITs indices and the two uncertainty indices constructed by Baker et al. (2013). Our sample...

Forecasting aggregate retail sales may improve portfolio investors’ ability to predict movements in the stock prices of the retailing chains. Therefore, this paper uses 26 (23 single and 3 combination) forecasting models to forecast South Africa’s aggregate seasonal retail sales. We use data...

This paper provides out-of-sample forecasts of Nevada gross gaming revenue and taxable sales using a battery of linear and non-linear forecasting models and univariate and multivariate techniques. The linear models include vector autoregressive and vector error-correction models with and without...