In this paper, we use time-use surveys to examine trends in the allocation of time in five industrialized countries over the last thirty years. Adjusting for changing demographics, we find that leisure time across countries has converged over this period. Specifically, leisure time has declined...

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Taking account of the potential simultaneity between terror and decentralization, our results show that expenditure...

We introduce a new model for two-sided markets that generalizes stable marriages as well as assignment games. Our model is a further generalization of the model introduced by Eriksson and Karlander [2]. We prove that the core of our model is always non-empty by providing an algorithm that...

A simple consumption-based two-period model is used to study the (theoretical) effects of disagreement on asset prices. Analytical and numerical results show that individual uncertainty has a much larger effect on risk premia than disagreement if (i) the risk aversion is reasonably high and (ii)...

Do political institutions have cultural roots? Using a novel data set of cultural values we show that culture, defined as a society's collective beliefs and values, is an important determinant of institutions. We argue that the traditional proxies for culture used in the existing literature...

We develop infinitesimally robust statistical procedures for general diffusion processes. We first prove existence and uniqueness of the times series influence function of conditionally unbiased M–estimators for ergodic and stationary dffusions, under weak conditions on the (martingale)...

Nominal and real U.S. interest rates (1997-2007) are combined with inflation expectations from the Survey of Professional Forecasters to calculate time series of "inflation risk premia." It is shown that survey data on inflation and output growth uncertainty, as well as a proxy for liquidity...

This paper examines whether the chances of job placements improve if unemployed persons are counselled by caseworkers who belong to the same social group, defined by gender, age, education, and nationality. Based on an unusually informative dataset, which links Swiss unemployed to their...

This paper contains an independent empirical analysis of the effect of a Notice, issued by the Swiss Competition Commission in 2002 concerning vertical agreements between manufacturers and distributors of motor vehicles, on the degree to which the subsequent prices of cars in Switzerland...

We present a theory of the economic and demographic transition where adult longevity, child mortality, fertility and the education composition of the population are jointly determined. The model allows for an investigation of the determinants of underdevelopment traps as well as of the mechanism...