Impact of consumers' diet choices on greenhouse gas emissions

This study explores the impacts on agricultural and total GHG emissions of Finnish consumption if the share of animal based food products was reduced and if the share of ecologically produced food was to increase in Finland. GHG emissions associated with production of basic food items were quantified (per capita per annum) for current food consumption, for national standard diet recommendations, for a diet with no milk and beef and for a vegan diet including an oat-based milk susbstitute. The major source of GHG in primary food production is the cultivated soil. For the present average food consumption the emissions from the soil comprise 62 %, the share of emissions due to enteric fermentation is 24 %, whereas energy consumption and fertilizer manufacture both contribute about 8 %. Because of the extensive production mode, regarding GHG emissions the environmental performance, of organic production is poor

The evolution of aggregate stock ownership : [Version December 2010]

Since World War II, direct stock ownership by households has largely been replaced by indirect stock ownership by financial institutions. We argue that tax policy is the driving force. Using long time-series from eight countries, we show that the fraction of household ownership decreases with measures of the tax benefits of holding stocks inside a pension plan. This finding is important for policy considerations on effective taxation and for financial economics research on the long-term effects of taxation on corporate finance and asset prices. JEL Classification: G10, G20, H22, H30 Keywords: Capital Gains Tax, Income Tax, Stock Ownership, Bond Ownership, Inflation, Bracket Creep, Pension Fund

The Relevance of Accuracy for the Impact of Macroeconomic News on Volatility

We study whether the accuracy of news announcements matters for the impact of news on exchange rate volatility. We use high-frequency EUR/USD returns and releases of 20 US macroeconomic indicators, and measure the precision of news in three different ways. When the precision is defined by the size of the first revision of the previous month's figure, we find that precise news increases volatility significantly more than imprecise news. Also, news on indicators that are in general more precise increase volatility more than news on typically imprecise indicators. Finally, we use real time data to measure the 'true' precision of news and find that the size of the first revision of the previous month's figure is a reasonable signal of 'true' precision.volatility; exchange rates; macroeconomic announcements; high-frequency data

Precise measurement of the top quark mass in the lepton+jets topology at CDF II

We present a measurement of the mass of the top quark from proton-antiproton collisions recorded at the CDF experiment in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron. We analyze events from the single lepton plus jets final state ($t\bar t\to W^+bW^-\bar b\to l\nu b q \bar q'\bar b$). The top quark mass is extracted using a direct calculation of the probability density that each event corresponds to the $t\bar t$ final state. The probability is a function of both the mass of the top quark and the energy scale of the calorimeter jets, which is constrained {\it in situ} by the hadronic $W$ boson mass. Using 167 events observed in 955 pb$^{{-}1}$ of integrated luminosity, we achieve the single most precise measurement of the top quark mass, 170.8 $\pm$ 2.2 (stat.) $\pm$ 1.4 (syst.) GeV/$c^2$.Comment: accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

Assimilating Immigrants: The Impact of an Integration Program

Immigration policy design is an important and controversial topic in most developed countries. We inform this debate by evaluating the effects of an integration program for immigrants to Finland. The program consists of an individualized sequence of training and subsidized employment. Non-compliance is sanctioned by reductions in welfare benefits. Our empirical strategy exploits a discontinuity that made participation obligatory in May 1999 only for those who had entered the population register after May 1997. The results suggest that the program strongly increased the employment and earnings of immigrants and reduced their dependency on social benefits.Immigrants, assimilation, integration programs, regression-discontinuity

Assimilating Immigrants: The Impact of an Integration Program

Immigration policy design is an important and controversial topic in most developed countries. We inform this debate by evaluating the effects of an integration program for immigrants to Finland. The program consists of an individualized sequence of training and subsidized employment. Non-compliance is sanctioned by reductions in welfare benefits. Our empirical strategy exploits a discontinuity that made participation obligatory in May 1999 only for those who had entered the population register after May 1997. The results suggest that the program strongly increased the employment and earnings of immigrants and reduced their dependency on social benefits.Immigrants, assimilation, integration programs, regression-discontinuity

Optimal Forecasting of Noncausal Autoregressive Time Series

In this paper, we propose a simulation-based method for computing point and density forecasts for univariate noncausal and non-Gaussian autoregressive processes. Numerical methods are needed to forecast such time series because the prediction problem is generally nonlinear and no analytic solution is therefore available. According to a limited simulation experiment, the use of a correct noncausal model can lead to substantial gains in forecast accuracy over the corresponding causal model. An empirical application to U.S. inflation demonstrates the importance of allowing for noncausality in improving point and density forecasts.Noncausal autoregression; density forecast; inflation

Equilibrium exchange rates in oil-dependent countries

We assess the determinants of equilibrium real exchange rates in a sample of oil-dependent countries. Our basic data cover OPEC countries from 1975 to 2005. We also include three oil-producing Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in our robustness analysis. Utilising several estimation techniques, including pooled mean group and mean group estimators, we find that the price of oil has a clear, statistically significant effect on real exchange rates in our group of oil-producing countries. Higher oil price lead to appreciation of the real exchange rate. Elasticity of the real exchange rate with respect to the oil price is typically between 0.4 and 0.5, but may be larger depending on the specification. Real per capita GDP, on the other hand, does not appear to have a clear effect on real exchange rate. This latter result contrasts starkly with the consensus view of real exchange rates determinants, emphasising the unique position of oil-dependent countries.equilibrium exchange rate; pooled mean group estimator; resource dependency

Joint Modeling of Call and Put Implied Volatility

This paper exploits the fact that implied volatilities calculated from identical call and put options have often been empirically found to differ, although they should be equal in theory. We propose a new bivariate mixture multiplicative error model and show that it is a good fit to Nikkei 225 index call and put option implied volatility (IV). A good model fit requires two mixture components in the model, allowing for different mean equations and error distributions for calmer and more volatile days. Forecast evaluation indicates that in addition to jointly modeling the time series of call and put IV, cross effects should be added to the model: putside implied volatility helps forecast callside IV, and vice versa. Impulse response functions show that the IV derived from put options recovers faster from shocks, and the effect of shocks lasts for up to six weeks.Implied Volatility, Option Markets, Multiplicative Error Models, Forecasting