This paper examines maximum likelihood estimation via hill climbing and the expectations maximization (EM) algorithm in the context of Hamilton's Markov switching framework. The techniques are explained in detail and are followed by a discussion of both analytic and computational issues. Both...

The problem of competitiveness has becoming one of the main concerns of European governments. This is reflected trough out the Europe 2020 Strategy that includes as key priority the promotion of efficient and productive use of inputs. Differently to other "well-behaved" European "neighbours", in...

We investigate the e ect of monetary policy on European macroeconomic variables using a small-scale vector autoregression (VAR) and the "Effective Monetary Stimulus" (EMS). The EMS is a monetary policy metric obtained from yield curve data that is designed to consistently reflect the overall...

The present paper describes the modelling of regional labour markets in the newly developed dynamic spatial general equilibrium model RHOMOLO, where the labour market equilibrium is determined by firms' labour demand, a wage-curve determining unemployment, and interregional labour migration. The...

The paper discusses criteria for comparing risk aversion of decision makers when outcomes are multidimensional. A weak concept, commodity specific greater risk aversion , is based on the comparison of risk premia paid in a specified commodity. A stronger concept, uniformly greater risk aversion...

There has been much informal speculation on how changes in economic circumstances contribute to partnership dissolution; however there has been little empirical work testing these speculations. This paper aims to shed light on how micro level factors such as receiving a financial windfall and...

Spatial econometrics has recently been appraised in a theme issue of the Journal of Regional Science. Partridge et al. (2012) provide an overview of the three contributing papers, the most critical being Gibbons and Overman (2012). Although some of the critiques raised are valid, they are issues...

The standard tool for analysing social dilemmas is game theory. They are reconstructed as prisoner dilemma games. This is helpful for understanding the incentive structure. Yet this analysis is based on the classic homo oeconomicus assumptions. In many real world dilemma situations, these...