The paper investigates maternity leave behavior in West Germany for females being employed between 1995 and 2006 using data from the German Socio Economic Panel. The observational study focuses on the investigation of individual and family-related covariate effects on the duration of maternity...

The paper investigates maternity leave behavior in West Germany for females being employed between 1995 and 2006 using data from the German Socio Economic Panel. The observational study focuses on the investigation of individual and family-related covariate effects on the duration of maternity...

This paper shows that there are severe measurement errors regarding the occupational affiliations in the German Socio-Economic Panel. These errors are traced back to the survey structure: in years where occupational information is gathered from the entire employed population instead of only from...

This paper shows that there are severe measurement errors regarding the occupational affiliations in the German Socio-Economic Panel. These errors are traced back to the survey structure: in years where occupational information is gathered from the entire employed population instead of only from...

In this paper, we consider some identification, estimation and specification problems in a class of semiparametric time series models. Existing studies for the stationary time series case have been reviewed and discussed. We also consider the case where new studies for the integrated...

This paper considers a class of parametric models with nonparametric autoregressive errors. A new test is proposed and studied to deal with the parametric specification of the nonparametric autoregressive errors with either stationarity or nonstationarity. Such a test procedure can initially...

This paper treats estimation in a class of new nonlinear threshold autoregressive models with both a stationary and a unit root regime. Existing literature on nonstationary threshold models have basically focused on models where the nonstationarity can be removed by differencing and/or where the...

After a summary of the main achievements in microfinance, the thesis provides an overview of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries between 2000 and 2009. A thorough study of microfinance in sub-Saharan Africa is also proposed. It serves as a prelude to the econometric analysis...