infonet-economy

A GMM-based system for two different linear factor pricing models is used to test if the pricing errors are the same. Simulations demonstrate the small sample properties. As an illustration, the test is applied to the Fama-French (1996, 2015) models.

Insurance companies are important financial institutions exposed to natural and man-made disasters. We conduct a comprehensive examination of existing asset pricing models in the US insurance universe (1988-2013) and propose an insurance-specific asset pricing model. We find that extant asset pricing models fail to explain the cross-section of insurance stock returns. Instead, we…

Does birthright citizenship boost immigrant children's participation
and success in the host country's educational system? We address this
question using a reform of the German naturalization law in 1999 that
entitled children born after January 1, 2000 to birthright citizenship.
We use a difference-in-difference design that compares children born…

Based on a massive data collection effort since the St. Petersburg G20 summit last September, in which a further 2,001 trade-related state initiatives have been documented, this report demonstrates that the resort to protectionism has been substantially higher than previously thought.

This study tests the two assumptions underlying popularly held notions that
maternal employment negatively affects children because it reduces time spent with parents: (1) that maternal employment reduces children's time with parents, and (2) that time with parents affects child outcomes. We analyze children's time-diary data from the Child Development Supplement of…

What is the impact of after-school center-based care on the development of primary school-aged children? Answering this question is challenging due to non-random selection of children into after-school center-based care. We tackle this challenge using detailed data of the German Child Panel and employing a value-added method. While we do not find significant effects on average, our…

One of the most dramatic trends in banking since 2000 has been the secular movement away from core banking and interest generating activities towards enhanced reliance on non-interest-generating activities that focus largely on fees and trading profits. This has changed the banking model from traditional asset formation, such as deposit taking and lending, towards a model built on…

Identification in most sample selection models depends on the independence of the regressors and the error terms conditional on the selection probability. All quantile and mean functions are parallel in these models; this implies that quantile estimators cannot reveal any - per assumption non-existing - heterogeneity. Quantile estimators are nevertheless useful for testing the…

We show that actively stabilizing economic activity plays a more prominent role in the conduct of monetary policy when potential output is subject to hysteresis. We augment a basic New Keynesian model by hysteresis in potential output and contrast simulation outcomes of this extended model to the standard model. We find that considering hysteresis allows for a more realistic…