This paper aims at analyzing the determinants of the decision to start smoking using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The data used is a combination of retrospective information on the age individuals started smoking and,by tracing back these individuals within the panel...

We use a randomized controlled trial to examine the short- and mid-term impacts of a best-practice training program on (non-)employment outcomes in Ghana. Overall the program did not affect core labor market outcomes at the extensive (employment) and intensive (hours of work, income) margin, but...

We propose a prior for VAR models that exploits the panel structure of macroeconomic time series while also providing shrinkage towards zero to address overfitting concerns. The prior is flexible as it detects shared dynamics of individual variables across endogenously determined groups of...

This paper analyses the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on the pricing behaviour of import firms in the euro area. Uncertainty is measured via the volatility of the structural shocks to the exchange rate in a non-linear VAR framework and is an important determinant of import prices. An...

Recent events such as the financial and sovereign debt crisis have triggered an increase in European Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU). We use a TVP-FAVAR model with hierarchical priors on the hyperparameters to investigate the effect of EPU on a wide range of macroeconomic variables for eleven...

This study considers Bayesian variable selection in the Phillips curve context by using the Bernoulli approach of Korobilis (2013a). The Bernoulli model, however, is unable to account for model change over time, which is important if the set of relevant predictors changes over time. To tackle...

We investigate the predictive power of several leading indicators in order to forecast industrial production in Germany. In addition, we compare their predictive performance with variables from two competing categories, namely macroeconomic and financial variables. The predictive power within...

We model the log-cumulative baseline hazard for the Cox model via Bayesian, monotonic P-splines. This approach permits fast computation, accounting for arbitrary censorship and the inclusion of nonparametric effects. We leverage the computational efficiency to simplify effect interpretation for...

House price cycles may have considerable macroeconomic effects even if they evolve heterogeneous across local markets. In this paper we use a panel Markov switching model allowing for time-varying volatility to analyze national and state level house price regimes for the US jointly. Our approach...

Do inflation expectations react to changes in the volatility of monetary policy? Yes, but only until the global financial crisis. This paper investigates whether increasing the dispersion of monetary policy shocks, which is interpreted as elevated uncertainty surrounding monetary policy, affects...