We revisit the question whether U.S. fiscal policy in the pre-Volcker period was active or passive. To determine the policy stance, we estimate a DSGE model with monetary and fiscal policy interactions employing a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm (SMC) for posterior evaluation. In contrast to...

In Brazil, the regional development policy is directed by the regional development funds for the Northeast (FNE), the North (FNO), and the Central-West (FCO), which invested more than ?36 billion in lagging regions between 2004 and 2010. This policy seeks to facilitate the economic and social...

In this paper we compare the magnitude of local productivity advantages associated to two different spatial concentration patterns in Italy, i.e. urban areas (UA) and industrial districts (ID). UA typically display a huge concentration of population and host a wide range of economic activities,...

This paper analyzes volatility spillovers in multivariate GARCH-type models. We show that the cross-effects between the conditional variances determine the persistence of the transmitted volatility innovations. In particular, the influence of a foreign volatility innovation on a conditional...

The goal of this paper is to carry out two outcome evaluations of the northeast regional fund (FNE) in Brazil. With this aim, the paper assembles two types of outcome evaluation often implemented separately in the evaluation literature. The results of the micro- and macro-evaluations show that...

In this paper we provide a brief overview of some of the most recent empirical research on spatial econometric models and spatial data mining. Data mining in general is the search for hidden patterns that may exist in large databases. Spatial data mining is a process to discover interesting,...

In this paper we examine if Slovak retail gasoline and diesel prices respond more quickly when crude oil price rises rather than when it decreases. The error correction model with irreversible behaviour of explanatory variables is considered to be basic tool for the analysis of asymmetric retail...