Many European countries entertain considerable active labour market policies (ALMP) to increase the reemployment chances of the unemployed. Since policies are very costly the pressure for scientific evaluations of the single programmes that are part of the ALMP increases. This paper surveys...

We propose information theoretic tests for serial independence and linearity in time series. The test statistics are based on the conditional mutual information, a general measure of dependence between lagged variables. In case of rejecting the null hypothesis, this readily provides insights...

This paper develops a new nonparametric series estimator for the average treatment effect for the case with unconfounded treatment assignment, that is, where selection for treatment is on observables. The new estimator is efficient. In addition we develop an optimal procedure for choosing the...

The report studies the distribution of income, expenditure, direct taxes and public transfers with respect to the age of household?s head. The data tonsist of five household budget surveys from the period 1971-1990 collected by Statistics Finland. The age- and cohort profiles of the variables...

This paper examines the empirical interplay between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions using panel data.Relying on nonparametric methods, we find evidence supporting specifications which assume the constancy of the relationship between per capita CO2 emissions and per capita GDP during...

Despite the high volatilities recorded for electricity prices, there seems to be little demand for options on electricity. One reason for the disinterest in electricity options could arise from uncertainty about how to price these options. This study uses recent econometric advances to...

The main uniform convergence results of Hansen (2008) are generalized in two directions: Data is allowed to (i) be heterogenously dependent and (ii) depend on a (possibly unbounded) parameter. These results are useful in semiparametric estimation problems involving time-inhomogenous models...