We propose a bivariate structural time series framework to decompose GDP and the unemployment rate into their trend, cyclical, and irregular components. We implement Okun's law by a generalised version of the common cycles restriction allowing for a phase shift between the two cycles and add a...

The paper investigates the determinants of banking profitability and banking market conditions in Austria. We conduct a panel econometric analysis which allows for testing the hypotheses which have become the most prominent in the literature on bank profitability: the...

Empirical evidence is increasing by emphasizing the positive influence of financial markets on the level and the rate of growth of a country's per-capita income. Theoretically, the rationale for the finance-growth nexus appears to be straightforward: in imperfect economies, financial markets...

In this paper we investigate the performance of the Austrian banks which have participated in a domestic in-market merger operation since 1996. For this purpose we apply the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology in combination with a Tobit model to account for the variation of the...

This study makes an attempt to examine the long-run relationship between the key labour market parameters of employment, aggregate output, real product wages and labour-augmenting technical progress for a sample of 21 OECD countries covering the period from 1970 to 2000. A new panel error...

In a dynamic setting intertemporal effects can arise that render capital rules in banking as advocated by the Basel Committee of Banking Supervision counterproductive. It is quite possible that the banks' desire for excessive risk-taking is being reinforced by a binding capital rule such as the...