infonet-economy

Stylized facts of asset return predictability are mainly based on evidence from the US, a large, closed economy, and, hence, are not necessarily representative of small, open economies. Furthermore, discountrate news mainly drive US asset returns. This is not the case in other economies. We use Switzerland as example to highlight the importance of these issues and to assess the…

This paper studies the transmission of changes in short-term interest rates to longer-term government bond yields when interest rates are at very low levels or negative. We focus on Switzerland, where short-term interest rates have been at zero since late 2008 and negative since the beginning of 2015. The expectations hypothesis of the term structure implies that as nominal interest…

We study the transmission of changes in the believed location of the lower bound to longterm interest rates since the introduction of negative interest rate policies. The expectations hypothesis of the term structure combined with a lower bound on policy rates suggests that the transmission of policy rate changes to long-term interest rates is reduced when policy rates approach this…

Striatal abnormalities play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Growing evidence suggests an association between aberrant striatal activity during reward anticipation and symptom dimensions in schizophrenia. However, it is not clear whether this holds across the psychosis continuum. The aim of the present study was to investigate alterations of ventral striatal…

Mimra, Wanda; Wambach, Achim

Constructing joint confidence bands for structural impulse response functions based on a VAR model is a difficult task because of the non-linear nature of such functions. We propose new joint confidence bands that cover the entire true structural impulse response function up to a chosen maximum horizon with a prespecified probability (1 − α), at least asymptotically. Such bands are…

This paper presents a dynamic North-South general-equilibrium model where per capita incomes shape demand patterns across regions. Innovation takes place in a rich North while firms in a poor South imitate products manufactured in North. Allowing a role for per capita incomes in determining demand delivers a complete international product cycle as described by Vernon (1966), where…

Does the wide distribution of political power in democracies, relative to other modes of government, result in better decisions? Specifically, do we have any reason to believe that they are better qualitatively – more reasoned, better supported by the available evidence, more deserving of support – than those which have been made by other means? In order to answer this question we…

The calibration of (low-cost) inertial sensors has become increasingly important over the past years since their use has grown exponentially in many applications going from unmanned aerial vehicle navigation to 3D-animation. However, this calibration procedure is often quite problematic since the signals issued from these sensors have a complex spectral structure and the methods…