In this paper we investigate the economic integration - industrial specialization nexus and unravel the relationship between trade and financial openness and industrial specialization. For a panel of 31 countries over the period 1970 to 2005, we find that trade integration relates negatively to...

This paper introduces a new generation of Early Warning Systems (EWS) which takes into account dynamics within a system composed by binary variables. We elaborate on Kauppi and Saikonnen (2008), which allows to consider several dynamic specifications and to use an exact maximum likelihood...

Using a reduced rank regression framework as well as information criteria we investigate the presence of commonalities in the intraday periodicity, a dominant feature in the return volatility of most intraday financial time series. We find that the test has little size distortion and reasonable...

First, we investigate the minimal univariate representation of some well known n dimensional conditional volatility models. Simple systems (e.g. a VEC(0,1)) for the joint behaviour of several variables imply individual processes with a lot of persistence in the form of long order lags. We show...

In this paper we argue that in realistically calibrated two period general equilibrium models with incomplete markets CAPM-pricing provides a good benchmark for equilibrium prices even when agents are not mean-variance optimizers and returns are not normally distributed. We numerically...

When investigating the role of regulatory capital in bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) we finds that i.e. US targets are better capitalized than their acquirers and non-acquired peers and that US banks maintain higher capital than European banks. Thus, US banks strategically raise their...

This paper proposes to investigate the threshold effects of the productivity of infrastructure investment in developing countries within a panel data framework. Various speci.cations of an augmented production function that allow for endogenous thresholds are considered. The overwhelming outcome...

Firms interested in a direct investment in a transition countries often face difficulties in obtaining external finance. In this study Dutch survey data are used to check if financial obstacles are an important argument for Dutch firms not to engage in an FDI or if other nonfinancial arguments...

In drawing on modern finance theory, this note demonstrates the importance of financial instruments for large public sector projects. An explicit link to the theory of Henry George is made, and a public sector financing approach is being demonstrated by using the example of the Oder floodings in...

An example shows that for sophisticated consumers with changing preferences it can be perfectly rational not to seize arbitrage opportunities in markets without frictions.