Convergence in gross domestic product series of five European countriesis empirically identified using multivariate time series models that arebased on unobserved components with dynamic converging properties.We define convergence in terms of a decrease in dispersion over timeand model this...

This paper investigates business cycle relations among different economies in theEuro area. Cyclical dynamics are explicitly modelled as part of a time series model. Weintroduce mechanisms that allow for increasing or diminishing phase shifts and for time-varyingassociation patterns in different...

Using a comprehensive international trade data set we investigate empirical regularities (known as Zipf’s Law or the rank-size rule) for the distribution of the interaction between countries as measured by revealed comparative advantage. Using the recently developed estimator by Gabaix and...

In this paper we present a new three-step approach to the estimation of Generalized Orthogonal GARCH (GO-GARCH) models, as proposed by van der Weide (2002). The approach only requires (non-linear) least-squares methods in combination with univariate GARCH estimation, and as such is...

To gain insights in the current status of the economy, macroeconomic time series are often decomposed into trend, cycle and irregular components. This can be done by nonparametric band-pass filtering methods in the frequency domain or by model-based decompositions based on autoregressive moving...

An attempt is made to set rules for a fair and fruitful competition between alternative inference methods based on their performance in simulation experiments. This leads to a list of eight methodologic aspirations. Against their background we criticize aspects of many simulation studies that...

Estimators of regression coefficients are known to be asymptotically normally distributed, provided certain regularity conditions are satisfied. In small samples and if the noise is not normally distributed, this can be a poor guide to the quality of the estimators. The paper addresses this...

We modify the paper of Stahl (1989) [Stahl, D.O., 1989. Oligopolistic pricing with sequential consumer search. American Economic Review 79, 700–12] by relaxing the assumption that consumers obtain the first price quotation for free. When all price quotations are costly to obtain, the unique...

This paper presents an empirical examination of oligopoly pricingand consumer search. The theoretical model allows for sequential andnon-sequential search and using the theoretical restrictions firm andconsumer behavior impose on the data we study the empirical validity of themodels. Two...

In practice structural equations are often estimated by least-squares, thus neglecting any simultaneity. This paper reveals why this may often be justifiable and when. Assuming data stationarity and existence of the first four moments of the disturbances we find the limiting distribution of the...