This work develops change-point methods for statistics of high-frequency data. The main interest is the volatility of an Itˆo semi-martingale, which is discretely observed over a fixed time horizon. We construct a minimax-optimal test to discriminate different smoothness classes of the...

There is consensus that the recent nancial crisis revolved around a crash of the short-term credit market. Yet there is no agreement around the necessary policies to prevent another credit freeze. In this experiment we test the eects that contract length (i.e. maturity mismatch) has on the...

Retailers may enjoy stable cartel rents in their output market through the formation of a buyer group in their input market. A buyer group allows retailers to credibly commit to increased input prices, which serve to reduce combined final output to the monopoly level; increased input costs are...

We introduce a dynamic banking–macro model, which abstains from conventional mean– reversion assumptions and in which—similar to Brunnermeier and Sannikov (2010)—adverse asset–price movements and their impact on risk premia and credit spreads can induce instabilities in the banking...

With the help of a simple model, we show that the hindsight bias can lead to ineffcient delegation decisions. This prediction is tested experimentally. In an online experiment that was conducted during the FIFA World Cup 2010 participants were asked to predict a number of outcomes of the ongoing...

Numerous papers have tried to understand housing’s role in the economy and have not reached an agreement. In this paper we turn to the asymmetric relationship between housing and the overall economic activity. We find that the relation between building permits and GDP is regime-dependent....

A growing body of literature argues that the financial cycle is considerably longer in duration and larger in amplitude than the business cycle and that its distinguishing features became more pronounced over time. This paper proposes an empirical approach suitable to test these hypothe- ses. We...

Risk attitude and perception is reflected in brain reactions during RPID experiments. Given the fMRI data, an important research question is how to detect risk related regions and to investigate the relation between risk preferences and brain activity. Conventional methods are often insensitive...

We propose the use of a local autoregressive (LAR) model for adaptive estimation and forecasting of three of China’s key macroeconomic variables: GDP growth, inflation and the 7-day interbank lending rate. The approach takes into account possible structural changes in the data-generating...

Building on the task-based approach of technological change, this paper discusses the interaction between occupational polarization (e.g. a gradual increase of native employment in the lowest and highest-paying jobs) and employment opportunities of immigrant workers. Using high quality...