Economic theory typically assumes the existence of few unobserved unpredictable stochastic disturbances, called structural shocks, driving the whole economy. Would the economy be representable as a very high dimensional stochastic vector process, those shocks would be the reduced rank innovation...

We study the topological properties of the multinetwork of commodity-specific trade relations among world countries over the 1992–2003 period, comparing them with those of the aggregate-trade network, known in the literature as the international-trade network (ITN). We show that link-weight...

We study the community structure of the multi-network of commodity-specific trade relations among world countries over the 1992-2003 period. We compare structures across commodities and time by means of the normalized mutual information index (NMI). We also compare them with exogenous community...

When observed over a large panel, measures of risk (such as realized volatilities) usually exhibit a secular trend around which individual risks cluster. In this article we propose a vector Multiplicative Error Model achieving a decomposition of each risk measure into a common systematic and an...

We propose two new types of nonparametric tests for investigating multivariate regression functions. The tests are based on cumulative sums coupled with either minimum volume sets or inverse regression ideas; involving no multivariate nonparametric regression estimation. The methods proposed...

This paper documents the fundamental role played by factor accumulation in explaining the extraordinary postwar growth of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Participation rates, educational levels, and (excepting Hong Kong) investment rates have risen rapidly in all four economies....

One can consider the concept of market neutrality for hedge funds as having breadth and depth: breadth reflects the number of market risks to which a fund is neutral, while depth reflects the completeness of the neutrality of the fund to market risks. We focus on market neutrality depth, and...

This paper shows how separation of ownership and control may arise as a response to overload costs, despite agency costs, and how conglomerates arise as solution to information asymmetries in capital markets. In a context where entrepreneurs have the ability to run projects and improve their...

Corporate finance theories suggest that problems of asymmetric information and moral hazard in credit markets can be addressed by choosing short-term maturities. Theories of debt renegotiation suggest that the credibility of the implicit commitment to not make concessions to insolvent borrowers,...

A prevalent feature in rating markets is the possibility for the client to hide the outcome of the rating process, after learning that outcome. This paper identifies the optimal contracting arrangement and the circumstances under which simple ownership contracts over ratings implement this...