Showing papers by "Tinbergen Institute published in 2012"

Time Series analysis by state space methods

Abstract: This excellent text provides a comprehensive treatment of the state space approach to time series analysis. The distinguishing feature of state space time series models is that observations are regarded as made up of distinct components such as trend, seasonal, regression elements and disturbence [sic] terms, each of which is modelled separately. The techniques that emerge from this approach are very flexible and are capable of handling a much wider range of problems than the main analytical system currently in use for time series analysis, the Box-Jenkins ARIMA system. The book provides an excellent source for the development of practical courses on time series analysis.

Trademarks and Venture Capital Valuation

Abstract: This study investigates the role of trademarks in the start-up valuations of venture capitalists (VCs). Our results show that the number and breadth of trademark applications have inverted U-shaped relationships with the financial valuations of start-ups by VCs. The findings also indicate that in later funding rounds, the value of trademark applications decreases when the start-up progresses into more advanced development stages. Start-ups should consider these findings when seeking funding from VCs and should stress their market and growth orientations and their willingness to protect their marketing investments by highlighting their trademark activities.

Real-Time Inflation Forecasting in a Changing World

Abstract: This paper revisits the accuracy of inflation forecasting using activity and expectations variables. We apply Bayesian model averaging across different regression specifications selected from a set of potential predictors that includes lagged values of inflation, a host of real activity data, term structure data, nominal data and surveys. In this model average we can entertain different channels of structural instability, either by incorporating stochastic breaks in the regression parameters of each individual specification within this average, allowing for breaks in the error variance of the overall model average, or both. Thus, our framework simultaneously addresses structural change and model uncertainty that would unavoidably affect any inflation forecast model. The different versions of our framework are used to model U.S. PCE deflator and GDP deflator inflation rates for the 1960-2011 period. A real-time inflation forecast evaluation shows that averaging over many predictors in a model that at least allows for structural breaks in the error variance results in very accurate point and density forecasts, especially for the post-1984 period. Our framework is especially useful when forecasting, in real-time, the likelihood of lower-than-usual inflation rates over the medium term.

Banking and Trading

Abstract: We study the interaction between relationship banking and short-term, scalable arm's length finance which we call trading. Relationship banking is not scalable, has high franchise value, is long-term oriented and low risk. Trading is transaction-based: scalable, with lower margins (capital constrained), short-term, and more prone to risk shifting. When a bank engages in trading, it can use its franchise value to expand the scale of trading. However there are two inefficiencies. We show that a bank may allocate too much capital to trading ex post, compromising the ability to build relationships ex ante. And a bank may use trading for risk shifting. Financial innovation and the deepening of financial markets have pushed much of arm's length finance into the realm of trading by improving the marketability of assets. While combining relationship banking and trading offers some benefits at a low scale of trading, the unbridled growth of trading opportunities is distortive. The analysis offers insights into bank business models and helps assess recent initiatives aimed at structural reforms in banking.

Time-Varying Combinations of Predictive Densities Using Nonlinear Filtering

Abstract: We propose a Bayesian combination approach for multivariate predictive densities which relies upon a distributional state space representation of the combination weights. Several specifications of multivariate time-varying weights are introduced with a particular focus on weight dynamics driven by the past performance of the predictive densities and the use of learning mechanisms. In the proposed approach the model set can be incomplete, meaning that all models can be individually misspecified. A Sequential Monte Carlo method is proposed to approximate the filtering and predictive densities. The combination approach is assessed using statistical and utility-based performance measures for evaluating density forecasts. Simulation results indicate that, for a set of linear autoregressive models, the combination strategy is successful in selecting, with probability close to one, the true model when the model set is complete and it is able to detect parameter i nstability when the model set includes the true model that has generated subsamples of data. For the macro series we find that incompleteness of the models is relatively large in the 70's, the beginning of the 80's and during the recent financial crisis, and lower during the Great Moderation. With respect to returns of the S&P 500 series, we find that an investment strategy using a combination of predictions from professional forecasters and from a white noise model puts more weight on the white noise model in the beginning of the 90's and switches to giving more weight to the professional forecasts over time.

Is there a health penalty of China's rapid urbanization?

Abstract: While highly pertinent to the human welfare consequences of development, the impact of rapid urbanization on population health is not obvious. This paper uses community and individual-level longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey to estimate the net health impact of China's unprecedented urbanization. We construct an index of urbanicity from a broad set of community characteristics and define urbanization in terms of movements across the distribution of this index. We use difference-in-differences estimators to identify the treatment effect of urbanization on the self-assessed health of individuals. We find that urbanization raises the probability of reporting of poor health and that a greater degree of urbanization has a larger effect. The effect may, in part, be attributable to changed health expectations, but it also appears to operate through health behaviour. Populations experiencing urbanization tend to consume more fat and smoke more.

Did the Crisis Affect Inflation Expectations

Abstract: We investigate whether the anchoring properties of longrun inflation expectations in the United States, the euro area, and the United Kingdom have changed around the economic crisis that erupted in mid-2007. We document that surveybased measures of long-run inflation expectations remained fairly stable around 2 percent in the euro area, fluctuated above 2 percent in the United States, and drifted up to about 2.5 percent in the United Kingdom. Expectations measures extracted from inflation-indexed bonds and inflation swaps became much more volatile in 2007. Moreover, structural break tests show that their sensitivity to news about inflation and other domestic macroeconomic variables-a measure of anchoring-increased during the crisis, and in particular during the heightened turmoil triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. While liquidity premia and technical factors have significantly influenced the behavior of inflation-indexed markets since the outburst of the crisis, we show that these factors did not contaminate the relationship between macroeconomic news and financial market-based inflation expectations at the daily frequency. While our evidence is consistent with the idea that long-run inflation expectations may have become less firmly anchored during the crisis, problems in measuring expectations accurately make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions.

Speed, Algorithmic Trading, and Market Quality Around Macroeconomic News Announcements

Abstract: This paper documents that speed is crucially important for high frequency trading strategies based on U.S. macroeconomic news releases. Using order level data of the highly liquid S&P500 ETF traded on NASDAQ from January 6, 2009, to December 12, 2011, we find that a delay of 300 milliseconds (1 second) significantly reduces returns by 3.08% (7.33%) compared to instantaneous execution over all announcements in the sample. This reduction is stronger in case of high impact news and on days with high volatility. In addition, we assess the effect of algorithmic trading on market quality around macroeconomic news. Increases in algorithmic trading activity have a positive (mixed) effect on market quality measures when we use algorithmic trading proxies that capture the top of the order book (full order book).

Liquidity in the Foreign Exchange Market: Measurement, Commonality, and Risk Premiums

Abstract: Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we provide the first systematic study of liquidity in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Contrary to common perceptions, we find significant variation in liquidity across exchange rates, substantial costs due to FX illiquidity, and strong commonality in the liquidities of different currencies. We analyze the impact of liquidity risk on the carry trade, which is a popular trading strategy that borrows in low interest rate currencies and invests in high interest rate currencies. We find that low (high) interest rate currencies tend to offer insurance against (exposure to) liquidity risk. A liquidity risk factor has a strong impact on daily carry trade returns from January 2007 to December 2009, suggesting that liquidity risk is priced in currency returns. Finally, we provide evidence that liquidity spirals may trigger these findings.

Prediction of travel time variability for cost-benefit analysis

Abstract: Unreliable travel times cause substantial costs to travelers. Nevertheless, they are often not taken into account in cost-benefit analyses (CBA), or only in very rough ways. This paper aims at providing simple rules to predict variability, based on travel time data from Dutch highways. Two different concepts of travel time variability are used, which differ in their assumptions on information availability to drivers. The first measure is based on the assumption that, for a given road link and given time of day, the expected travel time is constant across all working days (rough information: RI). In the second case, expected travel times are assumed to reflect day-specific factors such as weather conditions or weekdays (fine information: FI). For both definitions of variability, we find that the mean travel time is a good predictor. On average, longer delays are associated with higher variability. However, the derivative of variability with respect to delays is decreasing in delays. It can be shown that this result relates to differences in the relative shares of observed traffic ‘regimes’ (free-flow, congested, hyper-congested) in the mean delay. For most CBAs, no information on the relative shares of the traffic regimes is available. A non-linear model based on mean travel times can then be used as an approximation.

Learning, Forecasting and Optimizing: An Experimental Study

Abstract: Rational Expectations (RE) models have two crucial dimensions: 1) agents correctly forecast future prices given all available information, and 2) given expectations, agents solve optimization problems and these solutions in turn determine actual price realizations. Experimental testing of such models typically focuses on only one of these two dimensions. In this paper we consider both forecasting and optimization decisions in an experimental cobweb economy. We report results from four experimental treatments: 1) subjects form forecasts only, 2) subjects determine quantity only (solve an optimization problem), 3) they do both and 4) they are paired in teams and one member is assigned the forecasting role while the other is assigned the optimization task. All treatments converge to Rational Expectation Equilibrium (REE), but at very different speeds. We observe that performance is the best in treatment 1) and worst in the treatment 3). Most forecasters use a n adaptive expectations rule. Subjects are less likely to make conditionally optimal production decision for given forecasts in treatment 3) where the forecast is made by themselves, than in treatment 4) where the forecast is made by the other member of their team, which suggests that "two heads are better than one" in finding REE.

The Effect of Early Entrepreneurship Education: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Abstract: The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of early entrepreneurship education. To this end, we conduct a randomized field experiment to evaluate a leading entrepreneurship education program that is taught worldwide in the final grade of primary school. We focus on pupils' development of relevant skill sets for entrepreneurial activity, both cognitive and non-cognitive. The results indicate that cognitive entrepreneurial skills are unaffected by the program. However, the program has a robust positive effect on non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills. This is surprising since previous evaluations found zero or negative effects. Because these earlier studies all pertain to education for adolescents, our result tentatively suggests that non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills are best developed at an early age.

Is There a Metropolitan Bias? The relationship between poverty and city size in a selection of developing countries

Abstract: This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to the choice of poverty line. The paper shows, further, that for all eight countries, a majority of the urban poor live in medium, small or very small towns. Moreover, it is shown that the greater incidence and severity of consumption poverty in smaller towns is generally compounded by similarly greater deprivation in terms of access to basic infrastructure services, such as electricity, heating gas, sewerage and solid waste disposal. We illustrate for one country – Morocco – that inequality within large cities is not driven by a severe dichotomy between slum dwellers and others. Robustness checks are performed to assess whether the findings in the paper hinge on a specific definition of “urban area”; are driven by differences in the cost of ...

Credit Protection and Lending Relationships

Abstract: We develop a model to analyze the effects of credit protection (e.g., credit insurance, guarantees, credit default swaps) on the provision of incentives to borrowers. Credit protection insulates lenders against losses when liquidating non--performing borrowers' projects. This hardens borrowers' budget constraints, which can have positive implications for incentives. However, credit risk transfer also dilutes the joint surplus of the bank-borrower coalition, thereby making it less worthwhile to implement high effort. The tradeoff between the costs and benefits of risk transfer has implications for the optimal design of credit protection vehicles.

Job Search Requirements for Older Unemployed: Transitions to Employment, Early Retirement and Disability Benefits

Abstract: We use a recent policy change in the Netherlands to study how changes in search requirements for the older unemployed affect their transition rates to employment, early retirement and sickness/disability benefits. The reform, becoming effective on January 1st 2004, requires the elderly to formally report their job search efforts to the employment office in order to avoid a (temporary) cut in benefits. Before the new law was passed, unemployed individuals were allowed to stop all search activity at the moment they turned 57.5. Estimating various duration models using difference-in-difference and regression discontinuity approaches, we find that for several groups of individuals who are affected by the policy change, the stricter search requirements significantly increases their entry rate into employment. However, we also find evidence of a higher outflow to sickness/disability insurance schemes, a presumably unwanted side-effect of the policy change.

Estimating Equilibrium Effects of Job Search Assistance

Abstract: Randomized experiments provide policy relevant treatment effects if there are no spillovers between participants and nonparticipants. We show that this assumption is violated for a Danish activation program for unemployed workers. Using a difference-in-difference model we show that the nonparticipants in the experiment regions find jobs slower after the introduction of the activation program (relative to workers in other regions). We then estimate an equilibrium search model. This model shows that a large scale role out of the activation program decreases welfare, while a standard partial microeconometric cost-benefit analysis would conclude the opposite.

Ethnic diversity and team performance: a field experiment

Abstract: One of the most salient and relevant dimensions of team heterogeneity is ethnicity. We measure the causal impact of ethnic diversity on the performance of business teams using a randomized field experiment. We follow 550 students who set up 45 real companies as part of their curriculum in an international business program in the Netherlands. We exploit the fact that companies are set up in realistic though similar circumstances and that we, as outside researchers, had the unique opportunity to exogenously vary the ethnic composition of otherwise randomly composed teams. The student population consists of 55% students with a non-Dutch ethnicity from 53 different countries of origin. We find that a moderate level of ethnic diversity has no effect on team performance in terms of business outcomes (sales, profits and profits per share). However, if at least the majority of team members is ethnically diverse then more ethnic diversity has a positive impact on the performance of teams. In line with theoretical predictions, our data suggest that this positive effect could be related to the more diverse pool of relevant knowledge facilitating (mutual) learning within ethnically diverse teams.

Regime switches in the volatility and correlation of financial institutions

Abstract: We propose a parsimonious regime switching model to characterize the dynamics in the volatilities and correlations of US deposit banks' stock returns over 1994-2011. A first innovative feature of the model is that the within-regime dynamics in the volatilities and correlation depend on the shape of the Student t innovations. Secondly, the across-regime dynamics in the transition probabilities of both volatilities and correlations are driven by macro-financial indicators such as the Saint Louis Financial Stability index, VIX or TED spread. We find strong evidence of time-variation in the regime switching probabilities and the within-regime volatility of most banks. The within-regime dynamics of the equicorrelation seem to be constant over the period.

Precaution and a Dismal Theorem: Implications for Climate Policy and Climate Research

Abstract: Economic efficiency has long been a gold standard for evaluating policies. In the context of climate change, the search for efficient solutions to the policy problem has evolved into using elaborate, regionally disaggregated integrated assessment models to judge the relative expected benefits and costs of various policy options across a wide range of possible futures. In many cases, studies in what is fundamentally a utilityoptimising design, use Monte Carlo simulations to set expected marginal benefits equal to expected marginal cost. This is why calculations of the social cost of carbon (SCC) have become so popular.

Economic Impacts of Cultural Diversity in the Netherlands: Productivity, Utility, and Sorting

Abstract: This paper identifies the role of cultural diversity in explaining spatial disparities in wages and housing prices across Dutch cities, using unique individual panel data of home owners. We distinguish between the effects of interactions-based productivity, consumption amenities and sorting of heterogeneous home owners while controlling for interactions between the labor and housing market. We find that an increase in the cultural diversity of the population positively impacts equilibrium wages and housing prices, particularly in the largest and most densely populated cities. This result is largely driven by spatial sorting of individuals in both the labor and housing market. After controlling for home owner heterogeneity we find that increasing cultural diversity no longer impacts local labor markets and negatively impacts local housing markets. The latter result is likely to be driven by a negative causal effect of increased cultural diversity on neighb orhood quality that outweighs a positive effect of increased cultural diversity in consumption goods.

Did SOX Section 404 Make Firms Less Opaque? Evidence from Cross-Listed Firms

Abstract: We study whether Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 made cross-listed firms less opaque via an examination of analyst earnings forecasts. To test this, we compare European Union (EU) firms that are cross-listed in the US — and therefore subject to S404 — with comparable EU firms that are not cross listed. We find that while both types of firms experienced a decrease in opaqueness over time, this decrease was significantly larger for cross-listed firms. Our results are robust to accounting for concurrent sell-side analyst regulations in the US, delistings, and changes in corporate risk taking. Overall, our analysis suggests that SOX had a positive effect on corporate disclosure quality.

Predicting Time-Varying Parameters with Parameter-Driven and Observation-Driven Models

Abstract: We study whether and when parameter-driven time-varying parameter models lead to forecasting gains over observation-driven models. We consider dynamic count, intensity, duration, volatility and copula models, including new specifications that have not been studied earlier in the literature. In an extensive Monte Carlo study, we find that observation-driven generalised autoregressive score (GAS) models have similar predictive accuracy to correctly specified parameter-driven models. In most cases, differences in mean squared errors are smaller than 1% and model confidence sets have low power when comparing these two alternatives. We also find that GAS models outperform many familiar observation-driven models in terms of forecasting accuracy. The results point to a class of observation-driven models with comparable forecasting ability to parameter-driven models, but lower computational complexity.

Super-exponential bubbles in lab experiments: evidence for anchoring over-optimistic expectations on price

Abstract: We analyze a controlled price formation experiment in the laboratory that shows evidence for bubbles. We calibrate two models that demonstrate with high statistical significance that these laboratory bubbles have a tendency to grow faster than exponential due to positive feedback. We show that the positive feedback operates by traders continuously upgrading their over-optimistic expectations of future returns based on past prices rather than on realized returns.

Stationarity and Ergodicity of Univariate Generalized Autoregressive Score Processes

Abstract: We characterize the dynamic properties of Generalized Autoregressive Score (GAS) processes by identifying regions of the parameter space that imply stationarity and ergodicity. We show how these regions are affected by the choice of parameterization and scaling, which are key features of GAS models compared to other observation driven models. The Dudley entropy integral is used to ensure the non-degeneracy of such regions. Furthermore, we show how to obtain bounds for these regions in models for time-varying means, variances, or higher-order moments.

Inequity in the Face of Death

Abstract: This discussion paper led to a publication in 'Health Economics' , 2015, 24(10), 1348-1367. We apply the theory of inequality in opportunity to measure inequity in mortality. Our empirical work is based on a rich dataset for the Netherlands (1998-2007), linking information about mortality, health events and lifestyles. We show that distinguishing between different channels via which mortality is affected is necessary to test the sensitivity of the results with respect to different normative positions. Moreover, our model allows for a comparison of the inequity in simulated counterfactual situations, including an evaluation of policy measures. We explicitly make a distinction between inequity in mortality risks and inequity in mortalityoutcomes. The treatment of this difference - “luck”- has a crucial in‡uence on the results.

Combination Schemes for Turning Point Predictions

Abstract: We propose new forecast combination schemes for predicting turning points of business cycles. The combination schemes deal with the forecasting performance of a given set of models and possibly providing better turning point predictions. We consider turning point predictions generated by autoregressive (AR) and Markov-Switching AR models, which are commonly used for business cycle analysis. In order to account for parameter uncertainty we consider a Bayesian approach to both estimation and prediction and compare, in terms of statistical accuracy, the individual models and the combined turning point predictions for the United States and Euro area business cycles.

Growth and Risk

Abstract: How exposure to risk affects economic growth is a key issue in development. This article quantifies both the ex ante and ex post effects of risk using long-running panel data for rural households in Zimbabwe. It proposes a simulation-based econometric methodology to estimate the structural form of a micro model of household investment decisions under risk. The key finding is that risk substantially reduces growth in this particular setting: the mean capital stock in the sample is (in expectation) 46 percent lower than in the absence of risk. About two-thirds of the impact of risk is due to the ex ante effect (that is, the behavioral response to risk), which is usually not taken into account in policy design. These results suggest that policy interventions that reduce exposure to shocks or that help households manage risk could be much more effective than is commonly thought.

Health and Work of Older Workers

Abstract: This version: February 2005 __________________________________________________________ Address for correspondence: Department of Economics, Free University of Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV The Netherlands, tel. (+31-20)-4446033, fax (+31-20)-4446005, email:mlindeboom@econ.vu.nl. *The author wrote this paper during his stay as the Netherlands Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics and the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA.