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...

Consider the duration of stay of migrants in a host country. We propose a statistical model of locally interdependent return hazards in order to examine whether interactions at the level of the neighbourhood are present and lead to social multipliers. To estimate this model we develop and study...

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...

In instrumental variable regression, structural parameter estimation relies on knowledge of the correlation between the structural error and the instruments. The current practice is to assume that this correlation is zero. However, this assumption is unlikely to be satisfied in applied work. In...

The paper analyses the method adopted by the index of employment protection systems developed in 1999 by the OECD and discusses its reliability and shortcomings, in particular with regards to Italy. The paper highlights a series of problems of method arising from the aggregation of the...

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...

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...

We propose two types of equal predictive ability (EPA) tests with panels to compare the predictions made by two forecasters. The first type, namely S-statistics, focuses on the overall EPA hypothesis which states that the EPA holds on average over all panel units and over time. The second,...

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...