In recent years, the international community has expanded efforts in programme evaluation to improve the accountability of development projects. This paper presents approaches to implementing state-of-the-art evaluations in rural electrification projects, taking into account specific challenges...

A Bayesian Spatial-Propensity Score Matching estimator is proposed to measure the regional impact of micro finance on poverty reduction and women's empowerment. The impact of micro finance in Bolivia was tested with this estimator, using census and household survey data. The results suggest that...

This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double- indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in...

This paper considers the statistical analysis of large panel data sets where even after condi-tioning on common observed effects the cross section units might remain dependently distrib-uted. This could arise when the cross section units are subject to unobserved common effects and/or if there...

This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double-indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in...

This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double-indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in...

This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double-indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in...

The Lee-Carter model is a basic approach to forecasting mortality rates of a single population. Although extensions of the Lee-Carter model to forecasting rates for multiple populations have recently been proposed, the structure of these extended models is hard to justify and the models are...

This collection of papers analyzes the versatility and predictive power of survey expectations data in asset pricing and macroeconomic forecasting. The first paper, Using Sentiment Surveys to Predict GDP Growth and Stock Returns sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment...

There are many alternative approaches to selecting mortality models and forecasting mortality. The standard practice is to produce forecasts using a single model such as the Lee-Carter, the Cairns-Blake-Dowd, or the Age- Period-Cohort model, with model selection based on in-sample goodness of...