We use survival models to analyze the duration of the spells associated with the interest rate used by the Bank of Canada as its monetary policy instrument. Both non-parametric and parametric models are estimated, allowing for right-censoring of the data, and time-varying covariates. We find...

This paper tests for unconditional and conditional income convergence among provinces in Canada during the period 1981-2001. We apply the first-differenced GMM estimation technique to the dynamic Solow growth model and compare the results with the other panel data approaches such as fixed and...

This paper examines the transmission of shocks between the US, Japanese and Australian equity markets. Tests for the existence of linear and non-linear transmission of volatility across the markets are performed using parametric and non-parametric techniques.

This paper presents a theoretical model, based on the neoclassical growth literature, which explicitly takes into account technological interdependence among economies and examines the impact of location and neighborhood effects in explaining growth. Technological interdependence is supposed...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the theoretical and econometric implications of omitting spatial dependence in the Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) model. Indeed, the international distribution of income levels and growth rates suggests the existence of large international disparities, and...

During the last three decades various models have been proposed by the literature to predict the risk of bankruptcy and of firm insolvency. In this work there is a survey on the methodologies used by the author for the analysis of default risk, taking into account several approaches suggested by...

Elasticities are often estimated from the results of demand analysis however, drawing inferences from them may involve assumptions that could influence the outcome. In this paper we investigate one of the most common forms of elasticity which is defined as a ratio of estimated relationships and...

This paper analyzes the quality of life over time in the U.S. In this paper we propose a statistical cluster analysis method based on an informationbased measure. This method is then employed to cluster diverse attributes of the quality of life. Aggregate annual measures of welfare are computed...

Matching estimators (Rubin, 1973a, 1977; Rosenbaum, 2002) are widely used in statistical data analysis. However, the large sample distribution of matching estimators has been derived only for particular cases (Abadie and Imbens, 2006). This article establishes a martingale representation for...

We investigate whether bonds span the volatility risk in the U.S. Treasury market, as predicted by most 'affine' term structure models. To this end, we construct powerful and model-free empirical measures of the quadratic yield variation for a cross-section of fixed-maturity zero-coupon bonds...