We construct comprehensive and comparable indices on the most relevant components of economic infrastructure. An unobserved components model is employed to cover the largest possible number of developing and developed countries over the period 1990-2010. We map major findings from the new...

Corruption is an intrinsically latent phenomenon, which makes it a challenging task to measure it and requires the use of indirect indicators. The academic community and non-government organizations have proposed various indices that differ in terms of their methodology, data and coverage. In...

This paper defines risk-on risk-off (RORO), an elusive terminology in pervasive use, as the variation in global investor risk aversion. Our high-frequency RORO index captures time-varying investor risk appetite across multiple dimensions: advanced economy credit risk, equity market volatility,...

We contribute to the question of why some countries are more attractive for foreign direct investment (FDI) than others by constructing a composite measure that describes a host country's attractiveness for receiving FDI. This index considers all identified major, measurable and, for our scope,...

This paper compares nine common specialization indices, discussing their properties, strengths and weaknesses. In order to unravel the differences between the indices they are applied to European employment structures in 2005, spanning 51 industries and 24 European countries. The resulting...

Standard simple-sum monetary aggregates, like M3, sum up monetary assets that are imperfect substitutes and provide different transaction and investment services. Divisia monetary aggregates, originated from Barnett (1980), are derived from economic aggregatio and index number theory and aim to...

Statistical offices try to match item models when measuring inflation between two periods. For product areas with a high turnover of differentiated models, however, the use of hedonic indexes is more appropriate since they include the prices and quantities of unmatched new and old models. The...

The success and failure of any democratic government is gauged in terms of how effectively it has fulfilled its constitutional obligation of enhancing social and economic well-being, particularly the common man. While developed economies use a set of indices to measure well-being, a systematic...

A previously overlooked source of potential bias in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is described. We find that unit value (average) prices, commonly used for construction of the CPI should be constructed over the same period as the index to be constructed, rather than over an incomplete...

We define a class of bias problems that arise when purchasers shift their expenditures among sellers charging different prices for units of precisely defined and interchangeable product items that are nevertheless regarded as different for the purposes of price measurement. For...