The so-called Balassa-Samuelson model implies that relative prices of non-traded goods may be nonstationary and, hence, that PPP should preferably be tested on real exchange rates based on prices of traded goods only. We propose a simple test for PPP among traded goods which can be applied to...

By using a smooth entropy function to approximate the non-smooth max-type function, a vertical linear complementarity problem (VLCP) can be treated as a family of parameterized smooth equations. A Newton-type method with a testing procedure is proposed to solve such a system. We show that the...

Most maintenance-optimisation models assume an infinite planning horizon and suppose that the failure process is stationary. Hence, information which is not known beforehand and which becomes available on the short term only, must be ignored. We consider in this paper a multi-component system...

In this paper we examine two hypotheses concerning emigration. The first hypothesis is that emigration is positively correlated with wage differentials. The second hypothesis concerns a positive correlation between emigration and higher education in the sending country (the so-called brain gain...

Delay management models determine which connections should be maintained in case of a delayed feeder train. Recently, delay management models are developed that take into account that passengers will adjust their routes when they miss a connection. However, for large-scale real-world instances,...

Demand for spare parts is often difficult to forecast using historical data only. In this paper, we give an overview of installed based information and provide several ways in which installed base forecasting can be used. We discuss cases of installed based forecasting at four companies and list...

We discuss a method to estimate the confidence bounds for average economic growth, which is robust to misspecification of the unit root property of a given time series. We derive asymptotic theory for the consequences of such misspecification. Our empirical method amounts to an implementation of...

Several instance-based large-margin classi¯ers have recently been put forward in the literature: Support Hyperplanes, Nearest Convex Hull classifier, and Soft Nearest Neighbor. We examine those techniques from a common fit-versus-complexity framework and study the links be- tween them. Finally,...

One of the possible consequences of global warming is that there will be more precipitation days throughout the year, and also that the level of precipitation will be higher. In this paper we provide a detailed statistical analysis of a century of daily precipitation levels for the Netherlands....

The paper focuses on the robustness of rankings of academic journal quality and research impact in general, and in Economics, in particular, based on the widely-used Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (ISI). The paper analyses 299 leading international journals in Economics...