Estimating the covariance and correlation between assets using high frequency data is challenging due to market microstructure effects and Epps effects.  In this paper we extend Xiu's univariate QML approach to the multivariate case, carrying out inference as if the observations arise from an...

This paper examines a test for the null of cointegration in a multivariate system based on the discrepancy between the OLS estimator of the full set of n cointegrating relationships in the n + k system and the OLS estimator of the corresponding relationships among first differences without...

The labour productivity differentials between manufacturing firms in Ghana and South Korea exceed those implied by macro analysis.  Median value-added per employee is nearly 40 times higher in South Korea than Ghana.  The most important single factor in explaining this difference is the...

We develop a new methodology for quantifying the tasks undertaken within occupations using 3,000 verbs from around 12,000 occupational descriptions in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOTs).  Using micro-data from the United States from 1880-2000, we find an increase in the employment...

In 2003 Kenya abolished user fees in all government primary schools. We find that this Free Primary Education (FPE) policy resulted in a decline in public school quality and increased demand for private schooling.  However, the former did not reflect a decline in value added by public schools -...

Poverty has halved in Ghana over the period from 1991 to 2005.  Our objective in this paper is to assess how far this fall was linked to the creation of better paying jobs and the increase in education.  We find that earnings rose rapidly in the period from 1998 to 2005, by 64% for men and by...

The underlying motivations for envy or related social preferences and their impact on agricultural innovations are examined by combining data from money burning experimental game and household survey from Ethiopia.  In the first stage of the money burning experimental game, income inequality is...

In Ghana there is a highly developed apprenticeship system where young men and women undertake sector-specific private training, which yields skills used primarily in the informal sector.  In this paper we use a 2006 urban based household survey with detailed questions on the background,...

There is an implicit consensus that 1930s exchange-rate regimes can be characterised as some variant of 'floating'.  This paper applies an adaptation of modern methodologies of exchange-rate regime classification to a panel of 47 countries in weekly observations between January 1919 and August...

Consider a finite data set of price vectors and consumption bundles; under what conditions will there be a weakly separable utlity function that rationalizes the data?  This paper shows that rationalization in this sense is possible if and only if there exists a preference order on some finite...