This report presents a reassessment of the proposed standard for energy conservation in new federal residential buildings. The analysis uses the data presented in the report, Economic Analysis: In Support of Interim Energy Conservation Standards for New Federal Residential Buildings (June...

Japan's rise to prominence as a leading player within the global electronics industry is frequently cited as emblematic of the country's postwar economic miracle, yet our understanding of why this phenomenon is far from complete. Conventional wisdom is divided, attributing the success of the...

Hundreds of papers and hundreds of factors attempt to explain the cross-section of expected returns. Given this extensive data mining, it does not make any economic or statistical sense to use the usual significance criteria for a newly discovered factor, e.g., a t-ratio greater than 2.0....

We introduce a new, market-based and forward looking measure of political risk derived from the yield spread between a country's U.S. dollar debt and an equivalent U.S. Treasury bond. We explain the variation in these sovereign spreads with four factors: global economic conditions,...

While gold objects have existed for thousands of years, gold's role in diversified portfolios is not well understood. We critically examine popular stories such as 'gold is an inflation hedge'. We show that gold may be an effective hedge if the investment horizon is measured in centuries. Over...