This paper examines structural breaks in the vertical price relationships in U.S. beef/cattleand pork/hog sectors using monthly data of the past 40 years. A major methodologicalissue addressed is how to estimate price relationships when data contain intermittentstructural breaks with unknown...

This paper demonstrates that the conventional approach of using official liberalisation dates as the only existing breakdates could lead to inaccurate conclusions as to the effect of the underlying liberalisation policies. It also proposes an alternative paradigm for obtaining more robust...

Previous studies (e.g., Hamori, 2000; Ho and Tsui, 2003; Fountas et al., 2004) find high volatility persistence of economic growth rates using generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) specifications. This paper reexamines the Japanese case, using the same approach and showing...

We study the effects that the Maastricht treaty, the creation of the ECB, and the Euro changeover had on the dynamics of European business cycles using a panel VAR and data from ten European countries - seven from the Euro area and three outside of it. There are slow changes in the features of...

In the centrally planned economy of the former Soviet Union, retail and wholesale trade were very much neglected. Since the beginning of transition the share of trade has increased considerably both in terms of its contribution to national product and employment. This paper analyses the...

A number of studies have shown that providing point forecasts to decision makers can lead to improved production planning decisions. However, point forecasts do not convey information about the level of uncertainty that is associated with forecasts. In theory, the provision of prediction...

A procedure is proposed for examining different aspects of performance for judgemental directional probability predictions of exchange rate movements. In particular, a range of new predictive performance measures is identified to highlight specific expressions of strengths and weaknesses in...