School systems regularly use student assessments for accountability purposes. But, as highlighted by our conceptual model, different configurations of assessment usage generate performance-conducive incentives of different strengths for different stakeholders in different school environments. We...

This paper investigates the propagation of instability through key asset markets of the US financial system - equity, real estate, banking and treasury - between 1/3/2000 and 12/26/2014. For this purpose, we develop an identification method to uncover characteristic financial market...

This paper analyzes whether nation-state governments can increase their credibility by becoming members of international organizations. Credibility is an important asset because it determines the real interest rate and is expected to have an important impact on investment and growth. It is...

In panel data econometrics the Hausman test is of central importance to select an e±cient estimator of the models' slope parameters. When testing the null hypothesis of no correlation between unobserved heterogeneity and observable explanatory variables by means of the Hausman test model...

In this note a Monte Carlo approach is suggested to determine critical values for diagnostic tests of Value-at-Risk models that rely on binary random variables. Monte Carlo testing offers exact significance levels in finite samples. Conditional on exact critical values the dynamic quantile test...

Tests of causality in variance in multiple time series have been proposed recently, based on residuals of estimated univariate models. Although such tests are applied frequently little is known about their power properties. In this paper we show that a convenient alternative to residual based...

Critics of international student comparisons argue that results may be influenced by differences in the extent to which countries adequately sample their entire student populations. In this research note, we show that larger exclusion and non-response rates are related to better country average...

The bulk of International Finance Corporation (IFC) lending benefits companies from rich countries, and projects in countries with middle income. Large conglomerates such as Lidl or Mövenpick have been among its direct beneficiaries. This contrasts to some extent with the IFC's official...