__Abstract__ This paper puts forward a new data collection method to measure daily consumer confidence at the individual level. The data thus obtained allow to statistically analyze the dynamic correlation of such a consumer confidence indicator and to draw inference on transition rates. The...

In this paper we address the question whether countries on the African continent have lower average growth rates in real GDP per capita than countries in Asia and Latin America. In contrast to previous studies, we do not aggregate the data, nor do we a priori assign countries to clusters....

The significant impact of international tourism in stimulating economic growth is especially important from a policy perspective. For this reason, the relationship between international tourism and economic growth would seem to be an interesting and topical empirical issue. The purpose of this...

The significant impact of international tourism in stimulating economic growth is especially important from a policy perspective. For this reason, the relationship between international tourism and economic growth would seem to be an interesting empirical issue. In particular, if there is a...

To understand changes in individuals' opinions and attitudes it would be best to collect data through panels. Such panels, however, often cause irritation among respondents, resulting in low response rates and low response quality. We address whether this problem can be alleviated by designing a...

This paper puts forward a data collection method to measure weekly consumer confidence at the individual level. The data thus obtained allow to statistically analyze the dynamic correlation of such a consumer confidence indicator and to draw inference on transition rates, which is not possible...

In this paper we propose a Bayesian analysis of seasonal unit roots in quarterly observed time series. Seasonal unit root processes are useful to describe economic series with changing seasonal fluctuations. A natural alternative model for similar purposes contains deterministic seasonal mean...

We consider tests for sudden changes in the unconditional volatility of conditionally heteroskedastic time series based on cumulative sums of squares. When applied to the original series these tests suffer from severe size distortions, where the correct null hypothesis of no volatility change is...

This paper demonstrates that the class of conditionally linear and Gaussian state-space models offers a general and convenient framework for simultaneously handling nonlinearity, structural change and outliers in time series. Many popular nonlinear time series models, including threshold, smooth...

The internal models amendment to the Basel Accord allows banks to use internal models to forecast Value-at-Risk (VaR) thresholds, which are used to calculate the required capital that banks must hold in reserve as a protection against negative changes in the value of their trading portfolios. As...