Modelling the discrete and infrequent official interest rate change in the UK

This paper is an empirical analysis of the manner in which official interest rates are determined by the Bank of England. We use a nonlinear framework that allow for the separate study of factors affecting the magnitude of positive and negative interest rate changes as well as their probabilities. Using this approach, new kinds of monetary shocks are defined and used to evaluate their impact on the UK economy. Among them, unanticipated negative interest rate changes are especially important. The model generalizes previous approaches in the literature and provides a rich methodology to understand central banks' decisions and their consequences

Modelling monetary transmission in UK manufacturing industry

This paper studies the transmission of monetary policy to industrial output in the UK. In order to capture asymmetries, a system of threshold equations is considered. However, unlike previous research, endogenous threshold parameters are allowed to be different for each equation. This approach is consistent with economic intuition and is shown to be of tangible importance after suitable econometric evaluation. Results show evidence of cross-sectional differences across industries and asymmetries in some sectors. These findings contribute to the debate about the importance of alternative economic theories to explain these asymmetries and support the use of a sectorally disaggregated approach to the analysis of monetary transmission

A Bayesian model to estimate causality in PISA scores: a tutorial with application to ICT

This paper presents a step-by-step tutorial to estimate causal effects in PISA 2012 by means of a nonparametric Bayesian modeling approach known as Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART), with an illustration of the causal impact of ICT on Spanish students' performance. The R code is explained in a way that can be easily applied to other similar studies. The application shows that, compared to more traditional methodologies, the BART approach is particularly useful when a high-dimensional set of confounding variables is considered as its results are not based on a sampling hypothesis. BART allows for the estimation of different interactive effects between the treatment variable and other covariates. BART models do not require the analyst to make explicit subjective decisions in which covariates must be included in the final models. This makes it an easy procedure to guide policy makers' decisions in different contextsStefano Cabras has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaci on grant MTM2013-42323, ECO2012-38442, RYC-2012-11455, by Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Univesit a e della Ricerca of Italy and by Regione Autonoma della Sardegna CRP-59903. Juan de Dios Tena Horrillo has been supported by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, ECO2009-08100 and ECO2012-32401

A Bayesian non-parametric modeling to estimate student response to ICT investment

This paper estimates the causal impact of investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) on student performances in mathematics as measured in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 for Spain. To do this we apply a new methodology in this context known as Bayesian Additive Regression Trees that has important advantages over more standard parametric specifications. Results indicate that ICT has a moderate positive effect on math scores. In addition, we analyze how this effect interacts with variables related to school features and student socioeconomic status, finding that ICT investment is especially beneficial for students from a low socioeconomic background

A Bayesian nonparametric modelling to estimate student response to ICT investment

This paper estimates the causal impact of investment in information andcommunication technologies (ICT) on student performances in mathematics asmeasured in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 for Spain.To do this we apply a new methodology in this context known as Bayesian AdditiveRegression Trees (BART) that has important advantages over more standardparametric specifications. Results indicate that ICT has a moderate positive effect onmath scores. In addition, we analyze how this effect interacts with variables related toschool features and student socioeconomic status, finding that ICT investment isespecially beneficial for students from a low socioeconomic background.Juan de Dios Tena acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, research project ECO2012-3240

National minimum wage and labour market outcomes of young workers

We analyze the impact of the national minimum wage (NMW) in the UK on the employment of young workers. We utilize the regression discontinuity approach to assess the impact of age-related increases in the NMW when workers turn 18 and 22. The previous literature has found little evidence of an adverse impact of the NMW on the UK labour market, both when considering the age-related increases or the regular annual increases that apply to all NMW rates. We fail to find any effect of turning 22 on employment. However, we find a significant and negative effect of male workers turning 21. We also find a negative effect for both genders upon turning 18. The age-related NMW rates may have an adverse effect on employment of young workers, with this effect possibly occurring already well in advance of reaching the threshold age.This research was funded by a grant from the UK Low Pay Commission (LPC

A proposal to obtain a long quarterly chilean gdp series

An important limitation in order to specify and estimate a macroeconomic model that describes the Chilean economy resides in using variables with sufficient number of observations that allow for a reliable econometric estimation. Among these variables, the GDP constitutes a fundamental magnitude. Nevertheless, for this variable there is not quarterly information before 1980. This paper computes quarterly GDP series for the period 1966-1979 using the approach by Casals et al (2000). As result, the new series incorporates the cyclical dynamic in the quarterly series later to 1979 respecting, in addition, all the annual existing information before the above mentioned period

La demanda externa en el contexto económico actual

La demanda interna sigue mostrando un fuerte dinamismo impulsada por el consumo privado y la Formación Bruta de Capital Fijo. Sin embargo, la demanda externa viene dando signos de debilitamiento desde el cuarto trimestre de 1997, aunque la pérdida de pulso se acentuó bruscamente en la segunda mitad del pasado ejercicio. Detrás de este debilitamiento se encuentra la crisis financiera internacional, que ha provocado una retroacción del comercio mundial y, por tanto, una significativa desaceleración de nuestras exportaciones. El buen tono que siguen manteniendo las importaciones, a pesar de la ligera desaceleración registrada en los meses finales de 1998, también está contribuyendo a agravar el problema. Este comportamiento del saldo exterior hizo que en el pasado año su aportación al crecimiento fuese negativa (-1,2 puntos porcentuales), lo que contrasta con las aportaciones positivas de los años anteriores. A tenor de la infonnación disponible para los tres primeros meses del año actual, cabe esperar que el comercio exterior continúe lastrando el crecimiento en el presente ejercicio, probablemente con mayor intensidad que en 1998. A pesar de todo ello, existen ciertos indicios de que la crisis internacional está comenzando a superarse y que, por lo tanto, el comercio exterior podrá continuar la mejora iniciada en el primer trimestre del presente ejercicio

Do happiness indexes truly reveal happiness? : measurin happiness using revealed preferences from migration flows

In this paper we attempt to establish a nexus between migration decisions and selfassessed happiness, where migration is taken as a mechanism for revealing preferences. The happiness literature has proposed both economic and non-economic determinants of happiness which are very similar to the factors that may be thought of as determinants of migration: absolute income, relative income, demographic and social characteristics, social development, relationship with others and characteristics of the place where we live. To these we add bilateral gravity variables, migration policies, and two survey-based happiness indexes. First, these two indexes are negatively correlated to net migration flows. Second, almost all the other explanatory variables are significant and as such survey-based happiness indexes fail to account for them. Third, we show how an international happiness ranking changes by taking into account those omitted factors. Finally, our migration-based ranking shows that, although many countries "truthfully" reveal happiness levels, in fact 19 countries are net migration senders even though they are self-proclaimed happy in surveys, whereas 23 countries are net migration recipients, even though in surveys they are self-proclaimed unhappy. We identify the sources of this mismatch and suggest where action could be taken to bring people’s self-assessment of happiness in line with revealed preference

Management efficiency in football: an empirical analysis of two extreme cases

Analysis of managerial efficiency in sport economics typically focuses on evaluating coach decisions instead of assessing the organization as a whole. This paper studies the relative importance of variables related to power and managerial decisions by estimating stochastic production frontiers models for the Chilean and Italian football leagues. We find that historical and geographical variables intended to capture market size play their expected roles in both Italy and Chile. However, the degree of technical inefficiency is lower magnitude in Chile. This difference could be due to a smaller market size and/or to financial constraints faced by small clubs in this countryThe second and third authors acknowledge the financial support of MIUR.PRIN 2008 and Fondazione Banco di Sardegn