This paper reviews the empirical literature on international spillovers and contagion. Theoretical models of spillover and contagion imply that the reduced form observable variables suffer from two possible sources of bias: endogeneity and omitted variables. These econometric problems in...

We test if unconventional monetary policy instruments influence the competitive conduct of banks. Between q2:2010 and q1:2012, the ECB absorbed €218 billion worth of government securities from five EMU countries under the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). Using detailed security holdings...

Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) are an increasingly popular method to assess mastery or nonmastery of a set of fine-grained abilities in educational or psychological assessments. Several inference techniques are available to quantify the uncertainty of model parameter estimates, to compare...

An avalanche of empirical studies has addressed the validity of the rank-size rule (or Zipf's law) in a multi-city context in many countries. City size in most countries seems to obey Zipf's law, but the question under which conditions (e.g. sample size, spatial scale) this 'law' holds remained...

How does class size in compulsory school affect peoples' long run education and earnings? We use maximum class size rules and Norwegian administrative registries allowing us to observe outcomes up to age 48. We do not find any indication of beneficial effects of class size reduction in...

This study investigates reactions to real exchange rate changes in the German, French and UK automobile and mechanical engineering sectors using monthly data from 1995 to 2010. Our findings indicate that EUR/USD appreciations hamper exports, but do not necessarily imply an aggravated business...

We consider the effect of an increase in public investments on output in Europe against the background of a sharp drop of public investments in a number of EU countries during the crisis and subsequent policy discussions on the need to stimulate public investments. We start with a brief overview...

How does class size in compulsory school affect peoples’ long run education and earnings? We use maximum class size rules and Norwegian administrative registries allowing us to observe outcomes up to age 48. We do not find any indication of beneficial effects of class size reduction in...

We analyze the global relationship between oil prices, commodity-specific financial marketshocks and economic activity by means of Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) models for the period 1996 - 2015. For the financial market variables in our model, we use a breakdown of G-20 countries into...

In this paper we estimate a Bayesian vector autoregressive model with factor stochastic volatility in the error term to assess the effects of an uncertainty shock in the Euro area. This allows us to treat macroeconomic uncertainty as a latent quantity during estimation. Only a limited number of...