In this paper we present an international cross-country benchmarking analysis for utility regulation of France and Germany, the two largest electricity distribution countries in Europe. We examine the relative performance of 99 French and 77 German distribution companies operating within two...

It is widely recognized that ?market failure? prevents efficient risk sharing in natural disaster insurance. As a consequence, many countries adopted institutional frameworks presenting public sector participation, often praised as public-private partnerships. We define risk selection as a...

We model natural disaster insurance in France. We explicitly take into account the main institutional features of the system, such as the uniform premium rate in both high and low risk regions and the existence of a state reinsurance company. Our model indicates that the institutional set-up is...

In this paper we specify a multi-factor long-memory process that enables us to estimate the fractional differencing parameters at each frequency separately, and adopt this framework to model quarterly prices in three European countries (France, Italy and the UK). The empirical results suggest...

In this paper we specify a multi-factor long-memory process that enables us to estimate the fractional differencing parameters at each frequency separately, and adopt this framework to model quarterly prices in three European countries (France, Italy and the UK). The empirical results suggest...

Survey-based indicators such as the consumer confidence are widely seen as leading indicators for economic activity, especially for the future path of private consumption. Although they receive high attention in the media, their forecasting power appears to be very limited. Therefore, this paper...

This article presents a systematic and extensive empirical study on the presence of Markov switching dynamics in three dollar-based exchange rates. A Monte Carlo approach is adopted to circumvent the statistical inference problem inherent to the test of regime-switching behavior. Two data...