To reduce the chances of policy failures, policy makers need information about the effects of policies. Sometimes, policy makers can rely on agents who already possess the information. Often, the information has yet to be produced. This raises two problems. First, for a policy maker it is hard...

In this paper we transfer the Elo rating system, which is widely accepted in chess, sports and other disciplines, to rank scientific journals. The advantage of the Elo system is the explicit consideration of the factor time or the history of a journal's performance. Most other rankings that are...

This paper sheds new light on a long-standing puzzle in the international finance literature, namely, that exchange rate expectations appear inaccurate and even irrational. We find for a comprehensive dataset that individual forecasters' performance is skill-based. 'Superior' forecasters show...

This paper estimates ordered logit and probit regression models for bank ratings which also include a country index to capture country-specific variation. The empirical findings provide support to the hypothesis that the individual international bank ratings assigned by Fitch Ratings are...

In socio-economic sciences the RePEc network (Research Papers in Economics) has become an essential source for the gathering and the spread of both existing and new economic research. Furthermore, it is currently the largest bibliometric database in economic sciences containing 33 different...