This paper reports the results of a survey among private sector economists about credibility and transparency of central banks. In line with the survey of Alan Blinder among central bankers, we asked participants in Ifo s World Economic Survey to answer questions on the importance and...

Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970 s vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the...

Introductory economics courses emphasize opportunity cost, comparative advantage and specialization to show the benefits of trade. We assert that this emphasize leads to erroneous student mindset that trade requires specialization based on comparative advantage. We test students who have been...

It is unclear whether the hierarchy in the economics profession is the result of the agglomeration of excellence or of nepotism. I construct the professor-student network for laureates of and candidates for the Nobel Prize in Economics. I study the effect of proximity to previous Nobelists on...

We report results from a large-scale, pre-registered randomized field experiment in 159 Norwegian schools over four years. The intervention includes students aged 7-9 and consists of pulling students from their regular mathematics classes into small, homogenous groups for mathematics instruction...

In a previous paper, we have shown that academic rank is largely unrelated to tutorial teaching effectiveness. In this paper, we further explore the effectiveness of the lowest-ranked instructors: students. We confirm that students are almost as effective as senior instructors, and we produce...

To successfully reduce student attrition, it is imperative to understand what the underlying determinants of attrition are and which students are at risk of dropping out. We develop an early detection system (EDS) using administrative student data from a state and a private university to predict...