Large regional unemployment disparities are a common feature of the labor market in many countries. This study deals with the question whether regional unemployment disparities in western Germany widen, become narrower or remain constant over time. It examines the hypothesis of convergence for...

Several formal methods have been proposed to check identification in DSGE models via (i) the autocovariogram (Iskrev 2010), (ii) the spectral density (Komunjer and Ng 2011; Qu and Tkachenko 2012), or (iii) Bayesian indicators (Koop et al 2012). Even though all methods seem similar, there has been no...

Apart from a priori assumptions on instantaneous or long run effects of structural shocks, sign restrictions have become a prominent means for structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) analysis. Moreover, second order heterogeneity of systems of times series can be fruitfully exploited for...

In this paper I analyze the relationship between unemployment and criminal activity. Using a unique panel data set on German counties covering the years 2003 to 2009, I estimate the effect of unemployment on crime rates for different kind of offenses. I extensively control for potential...

This paper provides empirical evidence that Accelerated Vehicle Programs exhibit a positive influence on car registrations using unique aggregate monthly data for 23 OECD countries from 2000 to 2010. The effect is still traceable if dynamic panel data fixed effects methods are used to address...

This paper examines if overreaction of oil price forecasters is affected by uncertainty. Furthermore, it takes into account joint effects of uncertainty and oil price returns on forecast changes. The panel smooth transition regression model from Gonz alez et al. (2005) is applied with univariate...

Using data from social security records on Spanish males, we investigate the wage effects of working under a fixed-term contract. In a first step, we provide fixed-effects estimates of the wage effect of working under a fixed-term contract for low-skilled, medium-skilled, and high-skilled men...

This paper is among the first to link internal migration and subjective well-being in developed countries. Economic theory predicts that individuals migrate towards urban agglomerations, if the potential gain in income is sufficient to cover costs. However, this narrow view cannot explain why...

This paper aims at formulating econometric tools for investigating stochastic rationality, using the Random Utility Models (RUM) to deal with unobserved heterogeneity nonparametrically. Theoretical implications of the RUM have been studied in the literature, and in particular this paper utilizes...

We provide an overidentification test for a nonparametric treatment model where individuals are allowed to select into treatment based on unobserved gains. Our test can be used to test the validity of instruments in a framework with essential heterogeneity (Imbens and Angrist 1994). The...