Due to their well-known indeterminacies, factor models require identifying assumptions to guarantee unique parameter estimates. For Bayesian estimation, these identifying assumptions are usually implemented by imposing constraints on certain model parameters. This strategy, however, may result...

In a recent paper, Mertens and Ravn (2010) study the effects of anticipated fiscal policy shocks in a structural vector autoregressive model. The authors maintain that (i) the lag polynomial associated with news shocks is a cyclotomic polynomial and (ii) the matrix B(L) which transforms a...

We analyze the term structure of illiquidity premiums as the difference between the yield curves of two major bond segments that are both government guaranteed but differ in their liquidity. We show that its characteristics strongly depend on the economic situation. In crisis times, illiquidity...

We pick up the standard textbook approach of money creation and develop a simple agent-based alternative. We show that our model is well suited to explain the endogenous creation of money. Although more general, our model still contains the standard results as a limiting case. We also uncover a...

Wechselkurssysteme werden als Mittel der Wirtschaftspolitik eingesetzt. So war es auch bei der Europäischen Währungsunion. Die Notwendigkeit dazu leiteten die Gründungsväter aus der wirtschaftspolitischen Realität der 'Nach-Bretton-Woods-Ära' ab. Bereits im Zuge des Abkommens der Staats-...

In der Literatur finden sich zahlreiche Abhandlungen zu der Frage, welche Besonderheiten bei internationalen, also grenzüberschreitenden Unternehmensakquisitionen auftreten und in welcher Weise diese im Zuge einer Grenzpreisermittlung zu berücksichtigen sind. Als im Wesentlichen zu würdigende...

We develop a financial market model with interacting chartists and fundamentalists that embeds the famous bull and bear market model of Huang and Day as a special case. Their model is given by a one-dimensional continuous piecewise-linear map. Our model, on the other hand, is more flexible and...

Ob die Marktform des Monopsons am Arbeitsmarkt vorliegt, ist fur die Frage des Für oder Wider des Mindestlohns von essentieller Bedeutung. Denn in der kurzfristigen Analyse kann, insofern monopsonistische beziehungsweise oligopsonistische Strukturen am Arbeitsmarkt nachgewiesen werden, die...

In small samples and especially in the case of small true default probabilities, standard approaches to credit default probability estimation have certain drawbacks. Most importantly, standard estimators tend to underestimate the true default probability which is of course an undesirable...

The specification of prior parameters is a common practical problem when implementing Bayesian approaches to portfolio optimization. The precision parameter of the prior on the expected asset returns reflects the confidence of the investor in the prior knowledge. Within the framework of the...