Understanding and quantifying the determinants of the number of sectors or firms exporting in a given country is of relevance for the assessment of trade policies. Estimation of models for the number of exporting sectors, however, poses a challenge because the dependent variable has both a lower...

We provide an asymptotic distribution theory for a class of Generalized Method of Moments estimators that arise in the study of differentiated product markets when the number of observations is associated with the number of products within a given market. We allow for three sources of error: the...

This paper estimates the implied stochastic process of the volatility of the Swiss market index (SMI) from the prices of options written on it. A GARCH(1,1) model is shown to be a good parameterization of the process. Then, using the GARCH option pricing model of Duan (1991), the implied...

This paper tests for the importance of cash flow on investment in fixed capital and R&D using firm-level panel data in two countries between 1985 and 1994. For German firms, cash flow is not informative in simple econometric models of fixed investment or R&D. In identical specifications for...

This paper is concerned with semiparametric estimation of a threshold binary response model. The estimation method considered in the paper is semiparametric since the parameters for a regression function are finite-dimensional, while allowing for heteroskedasticity of unknown form. In...

In this paper we investigate whether young people whose fathers are union members are themselves more likely to join a union. The work builds upon a large social science literature on intergenerational mobility that, to our knowledge, has not been applied to industrial relations questions. The...

This paper analyzes differences in R&D spending and in the impact of R&D on productivity between German and UK firms. We confirm that German firms spend significantly larger amounts on R&D than their UK counterparts, even after controlling for firm size and industry effects. Using a dynamic...

With increasing globalisation of knowledge, there are increased opportunities to 'learn' from the experience of policy interventions elsewhere. This paper presents evidence on the extent of international convergence in public policy, with particular focus on labour, welfare, savings and...