The economic decisions of rational agents can be analyzedby theoretical models and/or empirical models. This dissertationconsists of two different applications of empirical models on twodifferent economic conundrums, both based on theoretical hypotheses.The first chapter introduces the related...

Probabilistic forecasts play a significant role in a wide variety of economics activities. However, established econometric modeling approaches for probabilistic forecasts may yield unsatisfactory forecasting performance due to model misspecification. In my dissertation, I try to minimize such a...

Compared with other transition countries Russia faces the burden of extreme cold. This is not, however, strictly a function of geography. Soviet location policy directly affected the average (population weighted) temperature of the Russian economy. Soviet policy moved industry and population...

Prior studies on the incremental predictive ability of accrual models over cash flow models with respect to future cash flows led to conflicting results. This paper extends the model of the accrual process developed by Barth, Cram, and Nelson (2001) by including cash flow implications of growth...

Two streams of agency theory research have focused on different aspects of the contracting relationship between shareholders and CEOs. The first stream of agency theory research examines the role of multiple performance measures in a CEOs compensation contract in maximizing firm value in a...

In this thesis, we study both firms and markets, but in an environment in which much greater attention is placed on the workings of the market than has been the case heretofore. Specifically, we analyze the make-or-buy decision within a dynamic environment, in which firms search for trading...

Mobility and air quality have emerged in recent years as major concerns in Bogota. Even though government authorities recognize that pollution control and congestion reduction are priorities in their policy agenda, there is little local understanding of the monetary benefits from improving urban...

The efficiency measurement literature has been almost exclusively based on a static view of the firm. In this static context the optimality of decisions is measured against the best practice frontier in a period-by-period basis and without any connection along time. This dissertation departs...

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate mortgage refinancing in the following three categories: refinancing and rate-and-point choice, refinancing and borrowers mortgage instrument choice, and estimating the market refinancing share of total mortgage origination volume. The choice of...

This study shows that despite the shortness of time-series and significant structural change the economies of three transition countries Russia, Armenia, and the Czech Republic have started to demonstrate regularities that can be used in some types of econometric forecasting. The high-frequency...