This article examines claims about the diversification benefits of real estate. In particular, does real estate investment in a mixed asset portfolio provide protection when other asset classes are performing badly? Conventional portfolio strategy models utilising covariance statistics may...

This paper investigates the properties of a linearized stochastic volatility (SV) model originally from Harvey et al. (Rev Econ Stud 61:247–264, <CitationRef CitationID="CR20">1994</CitationRef>) under an extended flexible specification (discrete mixtures of normal). General closed form expressions for the moment conditions are derived....</citationref>

This paper provides a survey of the economic literature relevant to social instability in China and moulds it into an argument. The objective is to offer a fresh view of economic policy and performance through the lens of the threat posed by social instability. This is a concept that economists...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the properties of bubbles in the light of steady state results for threshold auto-regressive (TAR) models recently derived by Knight and Satchell (2011). We assert that this will have implications for econometrics. We study the conditions under which we...

We examine a popular practitioner methodology used in the construction of linear factor models whereby particular factors are increased/decreased in relative importance within the model. This allows model builders to customise models and, as such, reflect those factors that the client/modeller...

This is a pioneering study of the determinants of the subjective well-being of ethnic minority people in rural China, using a specially designed sample survey relating to 2011. The underlying hypothesis is that the lifestyle and attitudes of ethnic minorities contribute to their happiness. Five...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the properties of locally explosive regimes in the light of steady state results for threshold auto-regressive (TAR) models recently derived by Knight and Satchell (2011) [Journal of Time Series Econometrics, 3]. We study the conditions under which a...

The paper contrasts early theories of the utility function (starting with Bentham and elaborated by Jevons) with the modern theory (laid down by Fisher and Samuelson).  The former include in the utility function not only the sensation of current events but also the memory of past events and the...

This is an attempt to view the relationships involving education and income as forming a system, and one that can generate a poverty trap.  The setting is rural China, and the data are from a national household survey for 2002, designed with research hypotheses in mind.  Enrolment is high in...

Why is it that couples who have a son or whose last child is a son earn higher conditional income?  To solve this curious case we tell a detective story: evidence of a phenomenon to be explained, a parade of suspects, a process of elimination from the enquiry, and then the denouement.  Given...