This paper provides evidence on the unit root hypothesis and long-term growth by allowing for two structural breaks. We reject the unit root hypothesis for three-quarters of the countries approximately 50% more rejections than in models that allow for only one break. While about half of the...

Measuring the integration of world capital markets is notoriously difficult. For example, regulatory changes which appear comprehensive may have little impact on the functioning of the capital market if they fail to lead to foreign portfolio inflows. In contrast to the usual practice of...

We examine the reaction of daily bond prices to the release of government macroeconomic news. These news releases are of interest because they are released on periodic, preannounced dates and because they cause substantial bond market volatility. The news component of volatility is not...

The American population is aging rapidly. Persons 65 and over who now constitute about one-fifth of the population will constitute about two-fifths of the population by 2040. In addition, individuals are living longer. Yet the labor force participation of older Americans has fallen dramatically...

Large bank holding companies (BHCs) are structured into intricate ownership hierarchies involving hundreds or even thousands of legal entities. Each subsidiary in these hierarchies has its own legal form, assets, liabilities, managerial goals, and supervisory authorities. In the event of BHC...

This paper considers the potential relationship between providing care for grandchildren and retirement, among women nearing retirement age. Using 47,400 person-wave observations from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we find the arrival of a new grandchild is associated with a more than...

The ongoing analysis of the effects of pension plan provisions on retirement is pursued in this paper. A primary objective of this paper is to test the validity of models previously developed and estimated with data from a Fortune 500 company, here using data from a second large company. The...

This paper challenges recent conventional wisdom of a divide between Main Street (the average American consumer) and Wall Street (financial market participants). The views of survey respondents regarding the likelihood of stock index returns exceeding specific thresholds are compared to market...

Recent policy has focused on alleviating poverty among the elderly, with varying degrees of success. Gains to some subsets of the elderly population have come at the expense of others. A component of the policy debate has been identifying factors which might influence labor force participation...

In this paper, we develop an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component in international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows...