Review of analytical instruments for EEG analysis

Since it was first used in 1926, EEG has been one of the most useful instruments of neuroscience. In order to start using EEG data we need not only EEG apparatus, but also some analytical tools and skills to understand what our data mean. This article describes several classical analytical tools and also new one which appeared only several years ago. We hope it will be useful for those researchers who have only started working in the field of cognitive EEG

Application of Stationary Wavelet Support Vector Machines for the Prediction of Economic Recessions

This paper examines the efficiency of various approaches on the classification and prediction of economic expansion and recession periods in United Kingdom. Four approaches are applied. The first is discrete choice models using Logit and Probit regressions, while the second approach is a Markov Switching Regime (MSR) Model with Time-Varying Transition Probabilities. The third approach refers on Support Vector Machines (SVM), while the fourth approach proposed in this study is a Stationary Wavelet SVM modelling. The findings show that SW-SVM and MSR present the best forecasting performance, in the out-of sample period. In addition, the forecasts for period 2012-2015 are provided using all approaches

An Empirical Analysis of the External Finance Premium of Public Non-Financial Corporations in Brazil

Our objective in this paper is to analyze empirically the relationship between the external finance premium of non-financial corporations in Brazil with their default probability and with their demand for inventories. As for the former relation, we find that corporations that have greater external finance premium have greater probability of default. As for the latter, we find that the external finance premium is positive and statistically significantly correlated. The results confirm previous results of the literature that indicate that the balance sheet channel of monetary policy is relevant in Brazil.

Measuring firms’ financial constraints: Evidence for Portugal through different approaches

Today's shortage of financial resources calls for the attention of researchers to the problem of financial constraints faced by firms. In this paper we analyse firms' financial constraints by estimating both investment-cash flow sensitivities and cash-cash flow sensitivities upon a large unbalanced panel of Portuguese firms in order to obtain robust findings. Additionally, we classify firms according to characteristics that are generally believed to indicate the presence of constraints (size, age and dividend payment). Our results clearly show that Portuguese firms are, in general, financially constrained. Furthermore, we verify that such constraints are more severe for certain groups of firms, in particular those firms that are smaller and do not pay dividends. However, we do not find evidence that age as a good proxy for financial constraints. Finally, we cast some doubts on the direct implementation of the SA index as a measure of financial constraints.Financial constraints; Firm-level studies; Portugal.

Financial constraints: Are there differences between manufacturing and services?

This paper is the first to explicitly explore the differences in firms' financial constraints between and within sectors of economic activity, by estimating the sensitivities of cash holdings to cash-flow upon an unique dataset of Portuguese firms. It shows that, not only there are remarkable differences between sectors and, especially, industries, but most importantly, that the commonly accepted inverse relationships between financial constraints and size and age are not robust to sectorial disaggregation.Services; Financial constraints; Firm-level studies; Portugal.

ELECTORAL CONTRIBUTIONS AND THE COST OF UNPOPULARITY

When considering electoral campaigns, candidates receiving contributions from relatively unpopular industries should be regarded less favorably by voters that have information on the sources of funding. To offset this unpopularity effect, politicians may either demand more money for campaign advertising from these industries in order to persuade less informed voters, or shy away from unpopular contributors to avoid losing the support of the informed electorate. Our model predicts that the first effect dominates, and electoral contributions are increasing in industry unpopularity. By using U.S. House elections data and different identification strategies, we provide robust evidence in favor of our predictions