The raw gender wage gap over the period 1995-2012 amounts to app. 9% of hourly wage and is fairly stable. However, the raw gap does not account for differences in endowments between genders. In fact, the adjusted wage gap amounts to as much as 20% on average over the analyzed period and shows...

The paper examines how much children and responsibilities related with them contribute towards the divergence of men’s and women’s wages, and consequently, to the formation of the gender wage gap. To derive the relative contribution of gender specific wage inequalities caused by the...

We suggest that the term structure of volatility futures (e.g. VIX futures) shows a clear pattern of dependence on the current level of VIX index. At the low level of VIX (below 20) the term structure is highly upward sloping; at the high VIX level (over 30) it is strongly downward sloping. We...

The article presents a simple parameterization of the volatility surface for options on the S&P 500 volatility index, VIX. Specifically, we document the following features of VIX implied volatility: (i) VIX at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility correlates strongly with the volatility skew in S&P...

We report the results of an experimental study analyzing the effects of Internet piracy on book sales. We conducted a year-long controlled large-scale field experiment with pre-treatment pair matching. Half of the book titles received experimental treatment, in which a specialized agency would...

This paper investigates the changes in the investment portfolio performance after including VIX. We apply different models for optimal portfolio selection (Markowitz and Black-Litterman) assuming both the possibility of short sale and the lack of it. We also use various assets, data frequencies,...

This paper employs a new rich source of data on worker reallocation in transition economies and provides a decomposition of the aggregate changes into those attributable to sectoral reallocation, those attributable to transition per se and those attributable to demographics. Aghion and Blanchard...

The adjustment speed of delta hedged options exposure depends on the market realized and implied volatility. We observe that by consistently hedging long and short positions in options we can eventually end up with pure exposure to volatility without any options in the portfolio at all. The...

We study empirically the impact of social indicators on growth in the context of FDI and trade. In this article, we argue that the positive growth effects of FDI and trade arise from factors such as knowledge spillovers or technological upgrading. Therefore, the effect of FDI and trade depends...

A number of stated preferences studies have quantified the value of gains in life expectancy from pollution control and use a Value of a Life Year (VOLY) approach to calculate the value placed on avoiding premature mortality following exposure to such pollution. However, life expectancy gains...