A key problem facing monetary policy makers is determining whether serious financial instability is present. Periods of financial instability are linked with low investors’ risk appetite (or in other words high risk aversion). Two different measures of investors’ risk aversion are used: (a)...

This paper analyzes the effects of electoral cycles on municipal police expenditure. We use a database with information on Spanish municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants for the period 2001–2008. Our data show that incumbents increase police spending 1 year before the elections,...

We estimate the impact of workforce diversity on productivity, wages and productivity-wage gaps (i.e. profits) using detailed Belgian linked employer-employee panel data. Findings, robust to a large set of covariates, specifications and econometric issues, show that educational (age) diversity...

The authors use matched employer-employee panel data on Belgian private-sector firms to estimate the relationship between wage/productivity differentials and the firm's labor composition in terms of part-time and sex. Findings suggest that the groups of women and part-timers generate employer...

In this paper, we test the hypothesis of a wage curve against a Phillips curve for Spain, within a dynamic framework that allows for both of these, and for more general alternatives. To this end, we use data from the European Community Household Panel, providing micro-information for the period...

This paper estimates a high-frequency New-Keynesian Phillips curve via the generalized method of moments. Allowing for higher-than-usual frequencies strongly mitigates the problems of small-sample bias and structural breaks. Applying a daily frequency allows us to obtain estimates for the Calvo...