infonet-economy

This paper extends the traditional focus of active labor market policy evaluation from a static comparison of participation in a program versus nonparticipation (or participation in another program) to the evaluation of the effects of program sequences, i.e. multiple participation or timing of such programs. We use a dynamic evaluation framework that explicitly allows for dynamic…

In this paper, the regression discontinuity design (RDD) is generalized to account for differences in observed covariates X in a fully nonparametric way. It is shown that the treatment effect can be estimated at the rate for one-dimensional nonparametric regression irrespective of the dimension of X. It thus extends the analysis of Hahn, Todd and van der Klaauw (2001) and Porter (…

The Sharpe ratio is adequate for evaluating investment funds when the returns of those funds are normally distributed and the investor intends to place all his risky assets into just one investment fund. Hedge fund returns differ significantly from a normal distribution. For this reason, other performance measures for hedge fund returns have been proposed in both the academic and…

Mandating universal service requires the public to decide what services people should have and what prices they should pay. Postal services have traditionally been financed by charging the senders only, while recent steps in the liberalization of the postal sector forced policymakers to find a broader financial basis for postal services. The existence of a receiver externality, the…

This paper shows how a mean variance criterion can be applied to a multi period setting in order to obtain efficient portfolios in an asset and liability context. The optimization model allows for rebalancing activities, transaction costs, stochastic volatilities for both assets and liabilities. Furthermore, a general framework for the projection of pension fund liabilities as well…

Purpose: This paper seeks to propose an innovative approach to the assessment of the effectiveness of organizational structures.
Design/methodology/approach: Explores a concept fro the measurement of the fractal dimensionality of living organisms, applying it from biology to social organizations.
Findings: The fractal dimensionality of an organization normally lies in the…

This paper studies the term structure implications of a simple structural economy in which the representative agent displays ambiguity aversion, modeled by Multiple Priors Recursive Utility. Bond excess returns reflect a premium for ambiguity, which is observationally distinct from the risk premium of affine yield curve models. The ambiguity premium can be large even in the simplest…