This paper utilizes quantile-regression techniques in order to estimate the effects of demographics and maternal behavior during pregnancy at various quantiles of the birthweight distribution. Due to the high costs and long-term effects (both medical and economic) associated with low-birthweight...

This study investigates the effects of social distancing measures on various types of social mobility, using country- and day-fixed effects on a panel of daily data comprising 29 European countries. Although social distancing measures proved to be significant for all types of mobility in the...

Non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common heart arrhythmia in the elderly population. AF patients are at high-risk of ischemic strokes, but oral anticoagulant (OAC) therapy reduces such risks. Warfarin had been the standard OAC for AF patients, however its effectiveness is highly...

Previous studies estimate the average effect of cigarette price on body mass index (BMI), with recent research showing that their different methodologies all point to a negative effect after several years. This literature, however, ignores the possibility that the effect could vary throughout...

The current study explores the association between body mass and job quality, a composite measurement of job characteristics, for adults. We use nationally representative data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study for the years 2005, 2007, and 2008 with 7282 person-year observations for...

The recent financial crisis has raised numerous questions about the accuracy of value-at-risk (VaR) as a tool to quantify extreme losses. In this paper we develop data-driven VaR approaches that are based on the principle of optimal combination and that provide robust and precise VaR forecasts...

Despite the remarkable improvement of female labor market characteristics, a sizeable gender wage gap exists in Colombia. We employ quantile regression techniques to examine the degree to which current small differences in the distribution of observable characteristics can explain the gender...

In this study we examine the issue of parameter heterogeneity in the neoclassical growth model using a quantile regression estimator. Using cross-sectional data on 86 countries covering the period from 1960 to 2000, we estimate a version of the growth model of Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992). We...

El objetivo de este estudio es identificar los factores determinantes del consumo eléctrico de los hogares, que deberán tenerse en cuenta en la definición de políticas de ahorro energético. Para ello, y a partir de los datos de la Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares, se estima un modelo...

This paper presents a counterfactual decomposition of the public–private gap on test scores obtained by 8th graders in Brazil. Quantile regression methods are used to obtain a characterization of the conditional distribution of scores, which is then used to build counterfactuals. The results...