The responsiveness of unemployment to growth is an issue of ongoing political and academic interest. Economic growth is supposed to be the key to increase labour demand and reduce unemployment. Departing from Okun's law, most research on the unemployment intensity of growth has focused on...

It is commonly accepted that information is helpful if it can be exploited to improve a decision making process. In economics, decisions are often based on forecasts of the upward or downward movements of the variable of interest. We point out that directional forecasts can provide a useful...

A class of dynamic factor and dynamic panel models is proposed for daily high dimensional correlation matrices of asset returns. These flexible semiparametric predictors process ultra high frequency information and allow to exploit both realized correlation matrices and exogenous factors for...

We evaluate the informational content of ex post and ex ante predictors of periods of excess stock (market) valuation. For a cross section comprising 10 OECD economies and a time span of at most 40 years alternative binary chronologies of price bubble periods are determined. Using these...

It is commonly accepted that information is helpful if it can be exploited to improve a decision mak- ing process. In economics, decisions are often based on forecasts of up{ or downward movements of the variable of interest. We point out that directional forecasts can provide a useful framework...

We study the impact of the introduction of the European Monetary Union on inflation uncertainty. Two groups of economies, one consisting of three European Union members which are not part of the EMU and one of six OECD member economies, are used as control groups to contrast the effects of...

The paper provides an analysis of daily changes of German yields of public bonds outstanding for the period 1981-mid 1996. The sample period covers the introduction of financial innovations like future options. In addition, we suppose the interdependence of national bond markets and the activity...

The aim of the paper is to estimate the extent of the shadow economy in the regions of the European Union. For this purpose the multiple-indicators multiple-causes approach combined with elements of spatial econometrics is implemented. The analysis shows that the shadow economy is most extensive...

We pursue a semiparametric approach to examining core implications of the Fisher hypothesis, namely cointegration linking nominal interest rates and inflation, and homogeneity of the potential equilibrium relation. The sample is an unbalanced panel and comprises monthly time series from more...