We study smoking persistence in ten countries using data from the European Community Household Panel. Such persistence may be due to true state dependence but may also reflect individual unobserved heterogeneity. We distinguish between the two by using semi-parametric dynamic panel data methods...

This paper analyzes tobacco demand within a discrete choice framework. Using binomial and multinomial logit models with random effects, and an unbalanced panel data set of Norwegian households over a twenty year period, we first consider the decisions a) whether to smoke or not, and b) given the...

Liquidity provision through its repo auctions has been one of the main instruments of the European Central Bank (ECB) to address the recent tensions in financial markets since summer 2007. In this paper, we analyse banks’ bidding behaviour in the ECB’s main refinancing operations (MROs)...

In this paper we study the determinants of investment decisions at the firm level with heterogeneous capital goods. We exploit a newly developed panel dataset of small and medium-sized firms which allows us to distinguish between purchases, sales, and net acquisitions of capital goods. We...

Recent developments in investment research have highlighted the importance of non-convexities and irreversibilities in the firms' adjustment of quasi-fixed inputs. However, aggregation across capital goods may smooth out the discontinuities associated with the adjustment of individual assets....

In recent years a number of panel estimators have been suggested for sample selection models, where both the selection equation and the equation of interest contain individual effects which are correlated with the explanatory variables. We review and compare some of these estimators, and apply...

In this paper we investigate whether unemployment traps exist and are significant in the transition from unemployment into employment in Belgium. In order to assess them, we use panel data sample selection models. Specifically, we estimate a parametric random effects models composed by a wage...

For a time-continuous discrete-state Markov process as model for rating transitions, we study the time-stationarity by means of a likelihood ratio test. For multiple Markov process data from a multiplicative intensity model, maximum likelihood parameter estimates can be represented as martingale...

This paper studies the persistence of innovation and the dynamics of innovation output in Dutch manufacturing using firm data from three waves of the Community Innovation Surveys (CIS), pertaining to the periods 1994-1996, 1996-1998, and 1998-2000. We estimate by maximum likelihood a dynamic...

We apply a recently proposed method to disentangle unobserved heterogeneity from risk in returns to education. We replicate the original study on US men and extend to US women, UK men and German men. Most original results are not robust. A college education cannot universally be considered an...