Social science has come under a firestorm of criticism following the discovery that many findings cannot be replicated. This paper argues that increasing the use of out-of-sample tests would improve the reliability of findings in all fields, including “complex” fields such as macroeconomics....

The idea that certain economic variables are roughly constant in the long-run is an old one. Kaldor described them as stylized facts, whereas Klein and Kosobud labelled them great ratios. While such ratios are widely adopted in theoretical models in economics as conditions for balanced growth,...

The current paper experiments with the conception and analytical model of principle components. The analysis utilizes data of Sudan to test the model fitness and data suitability. All the country's economic sectors are used in the analysis which also integrates high, medium and low income strata...

In this paper, we review the recent econometric methods related to unit root tests. The central idea is the interaction between structural breaks and unit roots. We consider the standard Dickey-Fuller test and its modifications that allow under the alternative hypothesis one or multiple...

What is self-governance, and under what sets of institutions is it possible? We explore this question from the perspective of informal (de facto) constitutionalism. The dominant approach, grounded in formal constitutionalism, overlooks crucial institutional features that determine whether...