This paper describes a methodology to estimate the coefficients, to test specification hypotheses and to conduct policy exercises in multi-country VAR models with cross unit interdependencies, unit specific dynamics and time variations in the coefficients. The framework of analysis is Bayesian:...

I develop a dynamic stochastic model of individual choices about health insurance, exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption and medical treatment. The primary objective is to estimate the parameters of the model to conduct counter-factual health policy experiments. The model is estimated through...

The negative effect of smoking during a pregnancy on a child's birth weight outcome has been a consistent finding in the economics literature on estimating birth weight production functions. An important result in the literature is that the negative effect of smoking on birth weight is generally...

This paper presents an attempt to solve and estimate a structural dynamic non-linear rational expectation model. The main contribution of this paper is to explore the Smolyak operator for numerical approximation and integration in a generic model class which do not suffer exponentially but only...

A high degree of cyclical synchronization between the new EU member states (NMS) from Central and Eastern Europe and the euro area is generally seen as a prerequisite for successful EMU enlargement. We establish stylized facts on economic linkages between NMS and the euro area using dynamic...

The main computational tool for solving SUR or simultaneous equations models is the generalized QR decomposition (GQRD) of an exogenous matrix A and the Cholesky factorization of a dispersion matrix C. Initially the GQRD computes the QRD of A and then the RQD of QC, where Q is an orthogonal...