A new point estimator for the AR(1) coefficient in the linear regression model with arbitrary exogenous regressors and stationary AR(1) disturbances is developed. Its construction parallels that of the median‐unbiased estimator, but uses the mode as a measure of central tendency. The...

In January 2005, the German Supreme Court permitted the state governments to charge tuition fees. By exploiting the natural experiment, we examine how government ideology influenced tuition fee policy. The results show that right-wing governments were active in introducing tuition fees. By...

In this paper we assess the information content of seven widely cited early indicators for the euro area with respect to forecasting area-wide industrial production. To this end, we use various tests that are designed to compare competing forecast models. In addition to the standard...

We investigate empirically how party ideology influences size and scope of government as measured by the size of government, tax structure and labor market regulation. Our dataset comprises 49 US states over the 1993-2009 period. We employ the new data on the ideological mapping of US...

This paper examines how political ideology influenced economic freedom across the Canadian provinces. We analyze the data set of economic freedom indicators compiled by the Fraser Institute in 10 Canadian provinces over the 1981-2005 period and introduce two different indices of political...

This paper analyses the inflation rate in Germany by means of a common trends model. Starting from an IS-LM model of the open economy, we conduct a cointegration analysis from which we obtain plausible long-run relationships. In the next step, we identify structural shocks with permanent and...