draft paper

The liabilities of a pension plan are monetary amounts to be paid at various times in the future.The current legal and regulatory framework for Irish occupational pension schemes can result in three different valuations for a scheme at any particular point in time. Using valuation models, this...

Reliable measures of obesity are essential in order to develop effective policies to tackle the costs of obesity. We examine what, if anything, we can learn about obesity rates using self-reported BMI once we allow for possible measurement error. Existing approaches that correct for...

This paper examines the short-term dynamics, macroeconomic sensitivities, and longer-term trends in the variances and covariances of national equity market index daily returns for eleven countries in the Euro currency zone. We modify Colacito, Engle and Ghysel?s Mixed Data Sampling Dynamic...

Many studies of labour market dynamics use survey data so it is valuable to know about the quality of the data collected. This paper investigates job transitions in Ireland over the period 1995 to 2001, using the Living in Ireland Survey, the Irish component of the European Community Household...

The recent dramatic rise in house prices in Dublin has been regularly discussed in the media. An obvious question is whether the seemingly ever-increasing house prices are driven by market fundamentals or by speculation? While the observed increase in house prices is due to excess demand for...

This paper examines the determinants of the decision to relocate activities abroad for firms that are located in 29 OECD countries. Our theoretical model suggests that firm heterogeneity plays a crucial role for the link between employment protection and relocation. Stricter employment...