Official forecasts of international institutions are never purely model-based. The preliminary results of models are adjusted with expert opinions. What is the impact of these adjustments for the forecasts? Are they necessary to get ‘optimal’ forecasts? When model-based forecasts...

Many companies collect stated preference data (SP) like intentions and satisfaction as well as revealed preference data (RP) like actual purchasing behavior. It seems relevant to examine the predictive usefulness of this information for future revealed preferences, that is, customer behavior. In...

This report is the second part of a PhD project entitled "The Econometrics of Maritime Safety – Recommendations to Enhance Safety at Sea" which is based on 183,000 port state control inspections and 11,700 casualties from various data sources. Its overall objective is to provide...

We analyze periodic and seasonal cointegration models for bivariate quarterly observed time series in an empirical forecasting study. We include both single equation and multiple equation methods. A VAR model in first differences with and without cointegration restrictions is also included in...

Economic variables like GDP growth, employment, interest rates and consumption show signs of cyclical behavior. Many variables display multiple cycles, with lengths ranging in between 5 to even up to 100 years. We argue that multiple cycles can be associated with long-run stability of the...

In this paper it is advocated to select a model only if it significantly contributes to the accuracy of a combined forecast. Using hold-out-data forecasts of individual models and of the combined forecast, a useful test for equal forecast accuracy can be designed. An illustration for real-time...

A strong link exists between Randstad's temporary sta±ng services and Dutch GDP. The two annual series share a stochastic trend and two long-swing deterministic cycles. Causality appears to run from temporary sta±ng to GDP and not vice versa. These features are taken aboard in a simple...

Theory predicts that dismissing the 1 and 2 euro cent coins from the denominational range of the euro leads to more payment efficiency. To examine whether this theory holds true in practice, we collected data for the Netherlands before and after September 1 2004, which marks the day that retail...

This report presents a comprehensive review of the maritime safety regimes and provides recommendations on how to improve the system. The results show a complex legal framework which generates a high amount of inspections and overlapping of inspection areas where no cross-recognition is...

Consumer preferences can be measured by rankings of alternatives. When there are too many alternatives, this consumer task becomes complex. One option is to have consumers rank only a subset of the available alternatives. This has an impact on subsequent statistical analysis, as now a large...