This research attempts to explain the large differences in the early diffusion of the mafia across different areas of Sicily. We advance the hypothesis that, after the demise of Sicilian feudalism, the lack of publicly provided property-right protection from widespread banditry favored the...

We investigate volatility models and their forecasting abilities for three types of petroleum futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (West Texas Intermediate crude oil, heating oil #2, and unleaded gasoline) and suggest some stylized facts about the volatility of these...

Predictive regressions are linear specifications linking a noisy variable such as stock returns to past values of a more persistent regressor with the aim of assessing the presence of predictability. Key complications that arise are the potential presence of endogeneity and the poor adequacy of...

This study examines the degree of time persistence in U.S. disaggregated renewable energy consumption (hydropower, geothermal, solar, wind, wood, waste, and biofuels) using innovative fractional integration and autoregressive models with monthly data for the period 1994:2 to 2011:10. The results...

This paper deals with the analysis of two observed features in historical oil price data; in particular, persistence and cyclicity. Using monthly data from September 1859 to October 2013, we observe that the series presents two peaks in the spectrum, one occurring at the long run or zero...

The detection and measurement of the level of persistence on aggregate and disaggregate private consumption in Italy, Norway and United Kingdom is the main focus of the paper. Using a non-parametric methodology applied to annual data it is concluded that that one cannot reject the presence of a...

The paper deals with the detection and measurement of the level of persistence on aggregate private consumption in Portugal, USA, European Union and EuroZone as well as on some categories of aggregate consumption in Portugal. By the use of a non-parametric methodology applied to monthly data...

A contribution to the study of volatility and country risk is made in order to achieve a successful crosscountry comparison. We present a methodology for the evaluation of country risk that include endogenous detection of multiple structural breaks (also identifying its different kinds),...