Search results for "probability"
showing 10 items of 3417 documents
Stability of a stochastic SIR system
2005
Abstract We propose a stochastic SIR model with or without distributed time delay and we study the stability of disease-free equilibrium. The numerical simulation of the stochastic SIR model shows that the introduction of noise modifies the threshold of system for an epidemic to occur and the threshold stochastic value is found.
A macroeconomic analysis of the public investments in European combined transport
2009
Intermodal transport has been recognized as a priority by the European Union, that has defined different budget allocations of investments to improve the shifting from road to intermodal transport, which is more sustainable. In this context, the main aim of the paper is to discuss the macroeconomic effects, in terms of economic growth, welfare and trade, of these public investments for combined transport, which aspects have been neglected in literature. A multi-country computable general equilibrium model has been used. The main results have been that the European Union benefits from these investments, but at international level, USA and Japan would lose in terms of welfare. Furthermore, th…
The shadow economy in three Mediterranean countries: France, Spain and Greece. A MIMIC approach
2007
This paper offers estimations of the evolution of the shadow economy in three Mediterranean countries, namely France, Spain and Greece. A multiple indicators and multiple causes model based on the latent variable structural theory has been applied. As established by Giles (Working paper on monitoring the health of the tax system, 1995), filtered data to solve the non-stationary problems are used. The model includes the tax burden (both as a whole and disaggregated into direct taxes, indirect taxes and social security contributions), a proxy of regulation burden, theu nemployment rate and self-employment as causes of the shadow economy and the GDP growth rate, the labour force participation …
Government Size, the Role of Commitments*
2011
We explore the hypothesis that long-term commitments affect the dynamics of government expenditure. With the aid of a simple median-voter model we interpret the pattern of increasing-then-constant tax rates observed in OECD countries in the second half of the last century: persistence of public expenditure and a lower bound on new interventions will push government size upward, and preferences of the electorate put a halt to this growth at some point. In this view, the fiscal policy variable is seen to consist of only a part of the total expenditure, the rest being predetermined by its past level.
Evaluating currency crises: the case of the European monetary system
2007
In this paper we examine the nature of currency crises. We ascertain whether the currency crises of the European Monetary System (EMS) were based either on fundamentals, or on self-fulfilling market expectations driven by extrinsic uncertainty. In particular, we extend previous work of Jeanne and Masson (J Int Econ 50:327–350, 2000) regarding the evaluation of currency crisis. We contribute to the existing literature proposing the use of Markov regime-switching with time-varying transition probability model. Our empirical results suggest that the currency crises of the EMS were not due only to market expectations driven by external uncertainty, or ‘sunspots’, but also to fundamental variabl…
Imperfect information and consumer inflation expectations:evidence from microdata
2017
This paper explores which factors trigger an adjustment in consumers’ inflation expectations and looks at the implications regarding forecast errors. We find support for imperfect information models, as inflation volatility and news trigger an adjustment in expectations. Furthermore, we document that individual expectations become more accurate if they have been adjusted.
Social capital and economic growth in Europe: nonlinear trends and heterogeneous regional effects
2016
After two decades of academic debate on the social capital-growth nexus, discussion still remains open. Most of the literature so far, however, has followed the one-size-its-all approach, neglecting that the great disparities across geographical units might have implications in this relationship. This article analyzes the role of two social capital indicators on the growth of 237 European regions in the period 1995–2007 by implementing a set of both parametric and non- parametric regressions. Whereas the former impose a linear functional form for the parameters, the latter relax this assumption providing a flexible frame in which the functional form is given by the data. The technique also …
Testing for hysteresis in unemployment in OECD countries. New evidence using stationarity panel tests with breaks†
2006
This paper tests hysteresis effects in unemployment using panel data for 19 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries covering the period 1956–2001. The tests exploit the cross-sectional variations of the series, and additionally, allow for a different number of endogenous breakpoints in the unemployment series. The critical values are simulated based on our specific panel sizes and time periods. The findings stress the importance of accounting for exogenous shocks in the series and support the natural-rate hypothesis of unemployment for the majority of the countries analysed.
Tests of multinormality based on location vectors and scatter matrices
2007
Classical univariate measures of asymmetry such as Pearson’s (mean-median)/σ or (mean-mode)/σ often measure the standardized distance between two separate location parameters and have been widely used in assessing univariate normality. Similarly, measures of univariate kurtosis are often just ratios of two scale measures. The classical standardized fourth moment and the ratio of the mean deviation to the standard deviation serve as examples. In this paper we consider tests of multinormality which are based on the Mahalanobis distance between two multivariate location vector estimates or on the (matrix) distance between two scatter matrix estimates, respectively. Asymptotic theory is develop…
A hierarchical Bayesian birth cohort analysis from incomplete registry data: evaluating the trends in the age of onset of insulin-dependent diabetes …
2005
Childhood diabetes is one of the major non-communicable diseases in children under 15 years of age. It requires a life-long insulin treatment and may lead to serious complications. Along with the worldwide increase in the incidence several countries have recently reported a decreasing trend in the age of onset of the disease. The aim of this study is to analyse long-term data on the incidence of the childhood diabetes in Finland from the birth cohorts perspective. The annual incidence data were available for the period 1965--1996 which translates into 1951--1996 birth cohorts. Hence the data consist of completely and partially observed cohorts. Bayesian modelling was employed in the analysi…