Suppose a fund manager uses predictors in changing portfolio allocations over time. How does predictability translate into portfolio decisions? To answer this question we derive a new model within the Bayesian framework, where managers are assumed to modulate the systematic risk in part by...

We introduce a Combined Density Nowcasting (CDN) approach to Dynamic Factor Models (DFM) that in a coherent way accounts for time-varying uncertainty of several model and data features in order to provide more accurate and complete density nowcasts. The combination weights are latent random...

The validity of family background variables instrumenting education in income regressions has been much criticized. In this paper, we use data of the 2004 German Socio-Economic Panel and Bayesian analysis in order to analyze to what degree violations of the strong validity assumption affect the...

This discussion paper was published in the <I> Economics of Education Review</I> (2012). Vol. 31(5), 515-523.<P> The validity of family background variables instrumenting education in income regressions has been much criticized. In this paper, we use data of the 2004 German Socio-Economic Panel and...</p></i>

This paper assesses the role of sovereign risk in explaining macroeconomic fluctuations in Turkey. We estimate two versions of a simple New Keynesian small open economy model on quarterly data for the period 1994Q3-2008Q2: A basic version and a version augmented by a default premium on...

We build an analytically and computationally tractable stochastic equilibrium model of unemployment in heterogeneous labor markets. Facing search frictions within markets and reallocation frictions between markets, workers endogenously separate from employment and endogenously reallocate between...

The aim of this paper is to analyze and estimate salient characteristics of unemployment dynamics. Movements in unemployment are viewed as ‘ ‘ chain reactions’’ of responses to labor market shocks, working their way through systems of interacting lagged adjustment processes. In the...

This paper examines the movements in EU unemployment from two perspectives: (a) the NRU/NAIRU perspective, in which unemployment movements are attributed largely to changes in the long-run equilibrium unemployment rate and (b) the chain-reaction perspective, in which unemployment movements are...

This paper presents a reappraisal of unemployment movements in the European Union. Our analysis is based on the chain reaction theory of unemployment, which focuses on (a) the interaction among labor market adjustment processes, (b) the interplay between these adjustment processes and the...

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner or an expanded welfare state? International integration may affect the distortions caused by welfare state activities but also the risks motivating social insurance mechanisms. This paper addresses these...