Most observers have concluded that while money markets and government bond markets are rapidly integrating following the introduction of the common currency in the euro area, there is little evidence that a similar integration process is taking place for retail banking. Data on cross-border...

This paper analyzes the sovereign risk contagion using credit default swaps (CDS) and bond premiums for the major eurozone countries. By emphasizing several econometric approaches (nonlinear regression, quantile regression and Bayesian quantile regression with heteroskedasticity) we show that...

This paper considers two central problems in our statistical frameworks which impair the ability to use wealth to assess economic sustainability or the impacts of economic downturns. Some increases in wealth may reflect increased economic rents—in particular, land and exploitation rents—and...

We compute new estimates for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth in the United States and in five European countries. Departing from standard methods, we account for positive profits and use firm surveys to proxy for unobserved changes in factor utilization. These novelties have a major...

This chapter applies recent research on environmental enforcement to a potential U.S. program to control greenhouse gases, especially through emission trading. Climate policies present the novel problem of integrating emissions reductions that are relatively easy to monitor (such as carbon...

Anti-poverty programs in developing countries are often difficult to implement; in particular, many governments lack the capacity to deliver payments securely to targeted beneficiaries. We evaluate the impact of biometrically-authenticated payments infrastructure ("Smartcards") on beneficiaries...

Incomplete product availability is an important feature of many markets; ignoring changes in availability may bias demand estimates. We study a new dataset from a wireless inventory system installed on 54 vending machines to track product availability every four hours. The data allow us to...

This paper presents a new framework for analyzing inequality that moves beyond the anonymity postulate. We estimate the determinants of sectoral choice and the joint distributions of outcomes across sectors. We determine which components of realized earnings variability are due to uncertainty...

This paper compares investor sentiment measures based on consumer confidence surveys with measures extracted from the closed-end fund discount (CEFD). Our evidence suggests that these two kinds of sentiment measures do not correlate well with one another. For a short 2 - 4 year period in which...