In the context of a first Working Paper the authors argued that electricity has a number of characteristics that set it apart from other commodities. It was demonstrated that some of these characteristics might complicate the deregulation process. This paper analyses the ongoing deregulation...

For quite a long time, network industries used to be regarded as (natural) monopolies. This was due to these industries having some special characteristics. Network externalities and economies of scale in particular justified the (natural) monopoly thesis. Recently, however, a trend towards...

Typical problems in the analysis of data sets like time-series or images crucially rely on the extraction of primitive features based on segmentation. Variational approaches are a popular and convenient framework in which such problems can be studied. We focus on Potts models as simple...

On the basis of integral representations we propose fast numerical methods to solve the Cauchy problem for the stochastic wave equation without boundaries and with the Dirichlet boundary conditions. The algorithms are exact in a probabilistic sense.

On the basis of integral representations we propose numerical methods to solve the stochastic wave equation and the stochastic Klein-Gordon equation. The algorithms are exact in a probabilistic sense.

To solve boundary value problems for linear systems of stochastic differential equations we propose and justify a numerical method based on the Gibbs sampler. In contrast to the technique which yields for linear systems an "exact" numerical solution, the proposed method is simpler to generalize...

We introduce coupling from the past, a recently developed method for exact sampling from a given distribution. Focus is on rigour and thorough proofs. We stay on an elementary level which requires little or no prior knowledge from probability theory. This should fill an obvious gap between...

This paper analyzes cost and profit efficiency level and the managerial behavior of banks in nine Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia), providing cross-country and time series evidence on the...

Linking Managerial Behaviour to Cost and Profit Efficiency in the Banking Sectors of Central and Eastern European Countries This paper analyzes cost and profit efficiency as well as the managerial behaviour of banks in nine Central and Eastern European countries, providing cross-country and...