We estimate monetary policy reaction functions with threshold effects for the Deutsche Bundesbank using a real-time data set. Estimates based on the deviation of inflation from the Bundesbank’s inflation target as threshold variable suggest a switch to a stronger output gap response in the...

The demographic and education composition of European countries is changing: the population share of young individuals is declining while that of the highly educated is rising. This paper estimates the impact of cohort size on wages using data on 21 European countries covering 2007-2010 to cast...

Credible inference requires attention to the possible fragility of the results (p-values for key hypothesis tests) to flaws in the model assumptions, notably including the validity of the instruments used. Past sensitivity analysis has mainly consisted of experimentation with alternative model...

There is a growing consensus that it is difficult to pick instruments that perfectly satisfy the exclusion restriction. Drawing on results from Berkowitz, Caner, and Fang (2012, Journal of Econometrics 166: 255–266), we provide in this article a nontechnical summary of how valid inferences can...

Hitherto financial drivers of human development have been unexplored by the UNDP. This paper assesses determinants of human development from financial dynamics of depth, efficiency, size and activity on data from 38 developing countries. While the importance of financial activity, size and depth...

This article integrates previously missing components of government quality into the governance-piracy nexus in exploring governance mechanisms by which global obligations for the treatment of IPRs are effectively transmitted from international to the national level in the battle against piracy....

Despite a recent growth in studies examining the association between family income and child health, very few studies investigate whether this is a causal relationship. This paper addresses this major methodological gap and examines the causal effect of family income on child health in the UK....

The existing huge literature on measuring trade openness, on the one hand, and the effect of trade openness on economic growth, on the other, all have failed to reach a clear-cut conclusion. Therefore, this paper's idea emerges by searching for an answer to the following two questions: how to...

We analyze the impact of the quality of candidates running for a mayor position on turnout using a large data set on Italian municipal elections held from 1993 to 2011. We firstly estimate a municipal fixed effects model and show that an increase in the average quality of candidates competing at...

We propose a simple kernel estimator for semiparametric partial linear models with endogeneity in the nonparametric function. Compared to the existing backfitting estimator, our estimator is notationally simpler and relatively easier to implement. We also discuss data-driven bandwidth selection...