Optimal forecasts are, under a squared error loss, conditional expectations of the unknown future values of interest. When stochastic demographic models are used in macroeconomic analyses, it becomes important to be able to handle updated forecasts. That is, when population development turns out...

There are over 3 billion searches globally on Google every day. This report examines whether Google search queries can be used to predict the present and the near future unemployment rate in Finland. Predicting the present and the near future is of interest, as the official records of the state...

This report examines whether Google search queries can be used to predict the present and the near future house prices in Finland. Compared to a simple benchmark model, Google searches improve the prediction of the present house price index by 7.5 % measured by mean absolute error. In addition,...

Das Forschungs-Informations-System ist ein am Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau- und Wohnungswesen angesiedeltes neues Verfahren zur webbasierten wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung. Basis des Systems sind so genannte Wissenslandkarten, durch die verschiedene Themen struktu-riert dargestellt...

This research report is part of a series of papers on the development and status of the Information Systems (IS) discipline in North-America and Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI) its counterpart in the German speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The corresponding research project (IFWIS)...

There has been an ongoing debate about the use of research methods in Information Systems Research (ISR). Despite the international dominance of the behaviourist approach, there is a remarkable number of researchers who propagate alternative methods, such as hermeneutic approaches or the...

The notion that Afghanistan at present is at a decisive point in time is well known. Information systems in Afghan public institutions are no exception. Mainly caused by the lack of available knowledge and competencies with regard to Open Source software, information systems infrastructures - by...