This paper examines co-movements and volatility spillovers in the returns of the euro, the British pound, the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen vis-à-vis the US dollar before and after the introduction of the euro. Based on dynamic correlations, variance decompositions, generalized VAR analysis,...

This paper proposes a new approach for multilateral comparisons using index numbers. The new approach combines two recently-proposed innovative techniques to examine differences among economies at various levels. The Minimum Spanning Tree algorithm, based on the idea of minimizing substitution...

Nearly 25 years after the German reunification, vastly different living conditions between East and West Germany still remain. This is particularly true for the distribution of net wealth which is of special importance for the well-being of individuals. Wealth provides utility in a number of...

We examine how much children and responsibilities related with them contribute towards the divergence of men's and women's wages, and consequently, to the formation of the gender wage gap. To derive the relative contribution of gender specific wage inequalities caused by the parenthood to the...

Our objective is to analyse the role of teacher and school quality to explain differences in students' educational outcomes. With this aim, we use PISA microdata for 10 middle income and 2 high income countries and we apply decomposition methods in order to identify the role of these factors for...