When evaluating the significance of calendar effects, such as those associated with Monday and January, it is necessary to control for all possible calendar effects to avoid spurious results. The downside of having to control for a large number of possible calendar effects is that it diminish...

The use of "Big Data" to explain fluctuations in the broader economy or guide the business decisions of a firm is now so commonplace that in some instances it has even begun to rival more traditional government statistics and business analytics. Big data sources can very often provide advantages...

This paper discusses first the role of mobile money accounts to enhance financial inclusion towards vulnerable groups in developing countries in the light of recent empirical evidence. Second, we explore the role of regulation to address risks to consumers and the financial system arising from...

We use two waves of census data with detailed farm characteristics for the total population of Austrian farms to examine the causal effect of agritourism on farm survival. To account for self-selection into agritourism, we use regional variation in tourism intensity that is exogenous to...

When looked at individually there is little reason to think that economists lack integrity and are dishonest. Yet, when we look at academic papers written by economists we can see biases. This paper tries to reconcile these two observations by arguing that the constraints the profession sets on...

We analyze the United Nations commodities trade database (UN comtrade), comprised of international commodities exchanges in volume and price with monthly resolution. We introduce a trade impact index to quantify the impact, in terms of distance travelled, of importing a specific food raw...

This paper studies tests of calendar effects in equity returns. It is necessary to control for all possible calendar effects to avoid spurious results. The authors contribute to the calendar effects literature and its significance with a test for calendar-specific anomalies that conditions on...

This paper applies the Model Confidence Set (MCS) procedure of Hansen, Lunde, and Nason (2003) to a set of volatility models. A MCS is analogous to confidence interval of a parameter in the sense that the former contains the best forecasting model with a certain probability. The key to the MCS...

This paper analysis the global distribution of art collections and collectors' biases with respect to the origin of artworks. Employing a unique dataset we find that the greatest number of private art collections are located in Europe, North America and Asia. There are relatively few collections...

In the United States and the European Union (EU), political incentives to oppose cross-border banking have been strong in spite of the measurable benefits to the real economy from breaking down geographic barriers. Even a federal-level supervisor and safety net are not by themselves sufficient...