We propose a new estimator, the thresholded scaled Lasso, in high dimensional threshold regressions. First, we establish an upper bound on the <I>ℓ</I><SUB>∞</SUB> estimation error of the scaled Lasso estimator of Lee et al. (2012). This is a non-trivial task as the literature on high-dimensional models has...</sub></i>

This study investigates the short- and long-run impact on population dynamics of the major flood in the Netherlands in 1953. A dynamic difference-in-differences analysis reveals that the flood had an immediate negative impact on population growth, but limited long term effects. In contrast, the...

This paper explores the link between trade structure, trade specialization and per capita incomegrowth. It is argued that industrial upgrading in export specialization patterns has a positive long-rungrowth effect, while the effect of structural change in industrial import patterns is in...

A major economic reason for the introduction of the euro was its supposedly positive effect on intra-EMU trade. Existing studies examine this suspicion indirectly using non-EMU data and report ambiguous results. We estimate the euro-effect directly from data that include EMU observations. Using...

Exchange market pressure (EMP) measures the pressure on a currency to depreciate. It adds to the actual depreciation a weighted combination of policy instruments used to ward off depreciation, such as interest rates and foreign exchange interventions, where the weights are their effectiveness....

Exchange market pressure (EMP) measures the pressure on a currencyto depreciate. It adds to the actual depreciation a weightedcombination of policy instruments used to ward off depreciation,such as interest rates and foreign exchange interventions, where theweights are their effectiveness. The...

A class of adaptive sampling methods is introduced for efficient posterior and predictive simulation. The proposed methods are robust in the sense that they can handle target distributions that exhibit non-elliptical shapes such as multimodality and skewness. The basic method makes use of...

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of early retirement on the probability to die within five years, using administrative micro panel data covering the entire population of the Netherlands. Among the older workers we focus on, a group of civil servants became eligible for retirement...

In simple static linear simultaneous equation models the empirical distributions of IV and OLS are examined under alternative sampling schemes and compared with their first-order asymptotic approximations. We demonstrate that the limiting distribution of consistent IV is not affected by...