We develop a composite indicator measuring the performance of national innovation systems. The indicator takes into account both 'hard' factors that are quantifiable (such as R&D spending, number of patents) and 'soft' factors like the assessment of preconditions for innovation by managers. We...

We introduce a procedurally fair rule to study a situation where people disagree about the value of three alternatives in the way captured by the voting paradox. The rule allows people to select a final collective ranking by submitting a bid vector with six components (the six possible rankings...

Recently, economists have argued that a bank's importance within the financial system depends not only on its individual characteristics but also on its position within the banking network. A bank is deemed to be 'central' if, based on our network analysis, it is predicted to hold the most...

The paper addresses the issue of forecasting a large set of variables using multivariate models. In particular, we propose three alternative reduced rank forecasting models and compare their predictive performance with the most promising existing alternatives, namely, factor models, large scale...

This paper suggests a new nonparametric testing procedure for determining the rank of nonstationary multivariate cointegrated systems. The asymptotic properties of the procedure are determined and a Monte Carlo study is carried out.

Testing the rank of a matrix of estimated parameters is key in a large variety of econometric modelling scenarios. This paper describes general methods to test for the rank of a matrix, and provides details on a variety of modelling scenarios in the econometrics literature where these tests are...

We provide a new method for jointly consistently estimating common trends and cycles in unit root nonstationary multivariate systems. We concentrate on the MA representation of the differenced data and we jointly impose the reduced rank restriction for the common cycles and the common trends on...

Identification in the context of multivariate state space modelling involves the specification of the dimension of the state vector. One identification approach requires an estimate of the rank of a Hankel matrix. The most frequently used approaches of rank determination rely on information...

We conducted a global study of the long-term issuer ratings of nonfinancial firms from Standard and Poor's Ratings Services (S&P) for the period 1998-2003. Specifically, we focused on the solicited versus unsolicited ratings and sample-selection bias in the analysis. Unlike the literature, we...

Im Januar 2014 wurde das aktuelle »Global Go-To Think Tank«-Ranking veröffentlicht. Eine erneute Prüfung der Qualität des Rankings zeigte, dass die bereits 2010 und 2012 erhobene Kritik an dem Rankingverfahren nach wie vor Gültigkeit hat. Die Ergebnisse sind nur mit höchster Vorsicht zu...