This paper shows that the behaviour of inventories is not symmetrical and that their modelling requires more than just a linear regression. Models of inventory behaviour are described and symmetric and non-symmetric-error-correction models are formulated which divide the changes in production...

We identify anthropogenic contributions to atmospheric CO2 measured at Mauna Loa using a statistical automatic model selection algorithm (Autometrics).  We find that vegetation, temperature and other natural factors alone cannot explain the trend or the variation in CO2 growth.  Industrial...

Here we assume that the logarithmic asset price is given by a semimartingale. Jacod (2006) has derived an infeasible central limit theorem for the realised variance in such a general framework. However, here we focus on constructing a feasible limit theorem. We propose a new estimator for the...

This paper explores whether the patent law and intellectual property rights (IPR) system have resulted in innovation in China during the reform period. It appears that the patent laws have produced a stock of patents, where the success rates of patent applications are fairly uniform across the...

This paper evaluates relations between industrial activity and the structure of countries’ financial, ownership and legal systems. Using data on 27 industries in 14 OECD countries over the period 1970 to 1995, we evaluate whether the structure of countries` systems is associated with...

How much does public capital matter for economic growth? How large should it be? This paper attempts to answer these questions, taking the case of SSA countries. It develops and estimates a model that posits a nonlinear relationship between public investment and growth, to determine the...

The paper extends existing work on inequality and economic development by estimating a cross-country structural model that identifies bi-directional relationships between income inequality and other indicators of social and economic development. Overall, lower inequality is associated with...

This paper analyzes regime shifts in the stochastic process of economic growth of six major OECD countries over three decades. For the statistical measurement of the underlying global business cycle, we generalize Hamilton's model of the US business cycle to a Markov-switching vector...

This paper is concerned with the nature of economic growth in 19 manufacturing industries between 1970-92. There is substantial heterogeneity (both across sectors and time) in rates of growth of value-added, hours worked, labour productivity and Total Factor Productivity during the sample...

This paper is a preliminary draft of a chapter for the new Handbook of Labour Economics edited by Orley Ashenfelter and David Card and Published by North Holland.