This paper considers the problem of forecasting under continuous and discrete structural breaks and proposes weighting observations to obtain optimal forecasts in the MSFE sense. We derive optimal weights for continuous and discrete break processes. Under continuous breaks, our approach recovers...

Is having a foreign background a relevant factor in choosing between payment instruments in consumer point-of-sale transactions? We analyze this question using a unique diary survey in which both participants with a Dutch and a foreign background documented their daily purchases. Payment habits...

Several attempts have been made in the economics literature to measure money laundering. However, the adequacy of these models is difficult to assess, as money laundering takes place secretly and, hence, goes unobserved. An exception is trade-based money laundering (TBML), a special form of...

Pricing should speed up the substitution of low cost electronic payments for expensive paper-based transactions and cash. But by how much? Norway has explicitly priced individual payment transactions and rapidly shifted to electronic payments while the Netherlands has experienced the same shift...

This paper investigates which leading indicators signal banking crises in emerging economies by using a multivariate logit model. We find that the stability of banking sectors in emerging economies is at risk in an environment of rapid lending growth, high inflation and rising real interest...

This paper presents the results of a survey among Dutch firms on price setting behaviour in the Netherlands. It aims to identify how sticky prices are, which prices are sticky and why they are sticky. It is part of the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network (IPN). The most distinctive feature...

We conduct an experiment to investigate (i) whether rotation in voting increases a committee's efficiency, and (ii) the extent to which rotation is likely to critically influence collective and individual welfare. The experiment is based on the idea that voters have to trade-off individual...

This study investigates the pricing behaviour of firms in the euro area on the basis of surveys conducted by nine Eurosystem national central banks, covering more than 11,000 firms. The results, robust across countries, show that firms operate in monopolistically competitive markets, where...

This paper investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and business cycle synchronization in the period 1982-2010 for eight industrialized countries. We find that more synchronized business cycles are associated with stronger FDI relations during 1995-2010, but that...

International trade relies on trade finance (credit or insurance) by financial institutions. Data limitations, however, have made it difficult to quantify the impact of changes in the supply of trade finance on trade. This paper is the first to establish a causal link between the supply of...