The paper discusses alternative Research Assessment Measures (RAM), with an emphasis on the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science database (hereafter ISI). Some analysis and comparisons are also made with data from the SciVerse Scopus database. The various RAM that are calculated annually or...

This paper deals with a special case of estimation with grouped data, where the dependent variable is only available for groups, whereas the endogenous regressor(s) is available at the individual level. By estimating the first stage using the available individual data, and then estimating the...

This paper deals with a special case of estimation with grouped data, where the dependent variable is only available for groups, whereas the endogenous regressor(s) is available at the individual level. By estimating the first stage using the available individual data, and then estimating the...

This paper evaluates, in the context of economic geography estimates, the magnitude of the distortions arising from the choice of zoning system, which is also known as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). We consider three standard economic geography exercises (the analysis of spatial...

On many occasions we need to construct an index that represents a number of variables. Cost of living index, general price index, human development index, index of level of development, etc are some of the examples that are constructed by a weighted (linear) aggregation of a host of variables....

In this paper we propose a unified framework to analyse contemporaneous and temporal aggregation of exponential smoothing (EWMA) models. Focusing on a vector IMA(1,1) model, we obtain a closed form representation for the parameters of the contemporaneously and temporally aggregated process as a...

This paper discusses a large-scale factor model for the German economy. Following the recent literature, a data set of 121 time series is used via principal component analysis to determine the factors, which enter a dynamic model for German GDP. The model is compared with alternative univariate...

This paper discusses the forecasting performance of alternative factor models based on a large panel of quarterly time series for the german economy. One model extracts factors by static principals components analysis, the other is based on dynamic principal components obtained using frequency...

This paper introduces a Divisia monetary aggregate for Germany and explores its information content for the Great Recession. Divisia money and the corresponding simple sum aggregate are highly correlated in normal times but begin to diverge before the crisis. Out of sample forecast analysis and...

This report presents the methodology for the construction of the Financial Stress Index (FSI) and the Economic Sensitivity Index (ESI) and investigates the economic situation in twelve Central and East European Countries (CEECs) between 2001 and 2012. The objective of this paper is to capture...