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Urban legend has it that the hemline is correlated with the economy. In times of decline, the hemline moves towards the floor (decreases), and when the economy is booming, skirts get shorter and the hemline increases. We collected monthly data on the hemline, for 1921-2009, and evaluate these agains
Macro-economic forecasts are often based on the interaction between econometric models and experts. A forecast that is based only on an econometric model is replicable and may be unbiased, whereas a forecast that is not based only on an econometric model, but also incorporates an expert’s touch, is
Based on detailed shipping figures of Suriname’s main harbour in Paramaribo, we estimate the total shipments (in kilograms) of original and counterfeit medical products for 1996-2008 across five product categories. Using various time series techniques, we document that total cumulative shipments of
Although high frequency diffusion data is nowadays available, common practice is still to only use yearly figures in order to get rid of seasonality. This paper proposes a diffusion model that captures seasonality in a way that naturally matches the overall S-shaped pattern. The model is based on th
In this paper we introduce a model that is suitable to study the diffusion of new and dominant multi-generation technologies. Examples are computer operat- ing systems, mobile phone standards, video game consoles. Our model incorporates three new features that are not included in related models. Fir
Macro-economic forecasts typically involve both a model component, which is replicable, as well as intuition, which is non-replicable. Intuition is expert knowledge possessed by a forecaster. If forecast updates are progressive, forecast updates should become more accurate, on average, as the actual
Forecasts in the airline industry are often based in part on statistical models but mostly on expert judgment. It is frequently documented in the forecasting literature that expert forecasts are biased but that their accuracy is higher than model forecasts. If an expert forecast can be approximated
In this paper we correlate the key features of the distribution of wealth of the 500 wealthiest individuals in the Netherlands with economic growth and stock market returns for 1998 to 2009. We show that each year the distribution obeys a power law and that the key parameter measures the degree of i
Charitable organizations send out large volumes of direct mailings, soliciting for money in support of many good causes. Without any request, donations are rarely made, and it is well known that each request for money by a charity likely generates at least some revenues. Whether a single request fro
We analyze the revision history of quarterly and monthly (seasonally unadjusted) macroeconomic variables for the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxemburg and the United States, where we focus on the degree of deterministic seasonality in these revisions. We document that the data show most deterministic seas
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