This text evaluates the empirical models of the Term Structure of Interest Rates (TSIR), comparing the resulting estimates regarding goodness-of-fit, robustness to outliers, and smoothness. In addition to the descriptive statistics on these metrics, the Friedman test and the multiple comparison...

Many empirical questions in economics and other social sciences depend on causal effects of programs or policies. In the last two decades much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of the effects of such programs or treatments. This recent theoretical literature has...

Short-term training has recently become the largest active labor market program in Germany regarding the number of participants. Little is known on the effectiveness of different types of short-term training and on their long-run effects. This paper estimates the effects of short-term training...

We apply a partial identification analysis using comprehensive Norwegian register data to investigate the causal effect of father’s income on child income. We find a strong association between the incomes of fathers and children. The causal effect, however, equals at least 1% and at most 51%...

Using rich geospatial data and causal machine learning (ML), this paper maps potential economic benefits from incremental investments in all major types of public and economic infrastructure across Africa. These 'infrastructure potential maps' cover all African populated areas at a spatial...

We propose a new monetary policy surprise measure based on cojumps in tick-data of a short and long term interest rate. We extend a recently proposed test for cojumps to distinguish policy announcements that shift the short and long end of the yield curve in the same direction (level shift) and...

The aim of our analysis is the evaluation of the total and sectoral convergence of labour productivity between 182 regions of EU12 in the period 1991-2006. The selected sectors are agriculture, manufactory, market and non-market services. We adopt a β- and sígma-convergence approach along with...

Local Development that Money Can't Buy: Italy's Contratti di Programma The paper evaluates the effectiveness of a major Italy's place-based policy (Contratti di Programma), through which the Government endorses and finances an industrialization plan proposed by private firms. By using as...

The German potable water supply industry is regarded highly fragmented, thus preventing efficiency improvements that could happen through consolidation. Focusing on a hypothetical restructuring of the industry, we use a cross-section sample of 364 German water utilities in 2006, applying Data...

We propose a geoadditive negative binomial model (Geo-NB-GAM) for regional count data which allows us to simultaneously address some important methodological issues, such as spatial clustering, nonlinearities and overdispersion. We apply this model to study location determinants of inward...