Permanent and widespread psychological biases affect both the subjective probability of future economic events and their retrospective interpretation. They may give rise to a systematic gap between (over-critical) judgments and (over-optimistic) expectations the “forecast” error. When things go bad, then, psychology suggests that people tend to become particularly optimistic, amplifying the for...

This paper analyses revisions of Swiss current account data, taking into account the actual data revision process and the implied types of revisions. In addition we investigate whether the first release of current account data can be improved upon by the use of survey results as gathered by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich. An answer in the affirmative indicates that it is possible ...

The issue of whether government capital is productive has received a great deal of attention recently, yet empirical analyses of public capital productivity have generally been limited to the official capital stock estimates available in a small sample of countries. Alternatively, many researchers have investigated the output effects of public investment—recognizing that investment may be a poo...

In this paper we present new measures for the bias in an import price index due to outsourcing. The m easure is developed fi rst for a high ly simplif ied case for the purpose of conveying the rationale for the measure. It is then generalized, yielding a m eaasure that could b e used in empirical stu dies. Before taking up this bias measurement problem , however, we expl ain the m easurement co...

In “Capital-Skill Complementarity and Inequality: A Macroeconomic Analysis,” Krusell et al. (2000) analyzed the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis as an explanation for the behavior of the U.S. skill premium. This paper shows that their model’s fit and the values of the estimated parameters are very sensitive to the data used: Alternative measures of the capital series predict skill premi...

a Department of Geology, Sölvegatan 12, Lund University, SE-22362 Lund, Sweden b Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA c Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin, 1215 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706, USA d Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies, Department of Geology, The Field Museum of N...

We provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between public debt and GDP growth in the postwar advanced economies. We use the timing of changes in public debt and growth to account for endogeneity, and find little evidence of a negative relationship. Semi-parametric estimates do not indicate any threshold effects. Finally, we reconcile our results with four recent, influential pape...

The issue of whether government capital is productive has received a great deal of attention recently, yet empirical analyses of public capital productivity have generally been limited to the official capital stock estimates available in a small sample of countries. Alternatively, many researchers have investigated the output effects of public investment—recognizing that investment may be a poo...

The infrared absorption spectrum of carbon disulfide has been remeasured in the region from 2 to 24 I' with cells up to 5 mm in t hickness. Fifteen bands were observed , some however being of low intensity. The strongest band for the liquid occurs at 6.621' , and t he second harmonic of this band was observed at 2.22 1' , but t he first harm onic, which should be at about 3.33 1' , was not obse...