Spillover effects of taxes on government debt: a spatial panel approach

It is claimed that tax policy is neither time- nor space-independent due to cross-border tax base mobility, which induces spillovers. Specifically, fiscal shocks in one country are supposed to have an impact on fiscal policies in other countries. Different types of taxes influence economies differently. This paper addresses the question of their impact on government debt. Within a framework of spatial econometric modeling, we evaluate the impact of capital, labor and consumption taxes on public debt in 34 European countries in 2002–2011, and find strong spatial spillovers. We show that a consumption tax and, to a lesser degree, a capital tax significantly affect the sovereign debt, and that the global relations play a leading role (i.e. dominate the local ones) in shaping fiscal policy.     

Estimation of the quantile function using Bernstein–Durrmeyer polynomials

This paper studies quantile estimation using Bernstein–Durrmeyer polynomials in terms of its mean squared error and integrated mean squared error including rates of convergence as well as its asymptotic distribution. Whereas the rates of convergence are achieved for i.i.d. samples, we also show that the consistency more or less directly follows from the consistency of the sample quantiles, such that our proposal can also be applied for risk measurement in finance and insurance. Furthermore, an improved estimator based on an error-correction approach is proposed for which a general consistency result is established. A crucial issue is how to select the degree of Bernstein–Durrmeyer polynomials. We propose a novel data-adaptive approach that controls the number of modes of the corresponding density estimator. Its consistency including an uniform error bound as well as its limiting distribution in the sense of a general invariance principle are established. The finite sample properties are investigated by a Monte Carlo study. Finally, the results are illustrated by an application to photovoltaic energy research.     

On Existence of Maximum Likelihood Estimators in Exponential Families

We propose a simple necessary and sufficient condition for existence of maximum likelihood estimators in a large class of canonical exponential families. We give an application to log-spline families.     

Linearity of regression for the past weak and ordinary records

In this paper we study the property of linearity of backward regression for non-adjacent records. In the case of weak records, a characterization of the geometric distribution is obtained. It also appears that a related characterization for ordinary records does not hold, showing the difference in conditional behaviour between weak and ordinary records.     

Allocation Constraints in Stratification

When a finite population is to be stratified, one of constraints in stratification is that sample sizes from strata may not be greater than the corresponding stratum sizes and may not be smaller than two. There are several ways of treating this allocation constraint, each providing an alternative approach to stratification. In this article, it is shown that a choice of the approach has a bearing on stratification efficiency. Unfortunately, no particular approach out of the four compared is shown to be the most efficient for each population studied. In addition, the approaches are applied to stratify a real population.     

Consistency of non parametric estimators of the area under the ROC curve

ABSTRACT

The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is a popular summary index that measures the accuracy of a continuous-scale diagnostic test to measure its accuracy. Under certain conditions on estimators of distribution functions, we prove a theorem on strong consistency of the non parametric “plugin” estimators of the area under the ROC curve. Based on this theorem, we construct some new “plugin” consistent estimators. The performance of the non parametric estimators considered is illustrated numerically and the estimators are compared in terms of bias, variance, and mean square error.     

On Vervaat and Vervaat-error-type processes for partial sums and renewals

We study the asymptotic behaviour of stochastic processes that are generated by sums of partial sums of i.i.d. random variables and their renewals. We conclude that these processes cannot converge weakly to any nondegenerate random element of the space D[0,1]$D[0,1]$. On the other hand, we show that their properly normalized integrals as Vervaat-type stochastic processes converge weakly to a squared Wiener process. Moreover, we also deal with the asymptotic behaviour of the deviations of these processes, the so-called Vervaat-error-type processes.     

Trapped in migrants’ sectors? Polish women in the Icelandic labour market

The employment‐driven migrations from Poland to Iceland have largely been pioneered by Polish women. They outnumbered men among Polish residents in this country until the economic boom since 2005 triggered large‐scale male immigration. This trend slowed down with the outbreak of the financial crisis, as the recession severely affected the male‐dominated construction industry. The analysis of Polish female migrants’ working experiences shows that recent inflows are mainly shaped by the nature of labour demand as well as the social policies and care services in Iceland. Although economically integrated, compared with native women Polish women tend to occupy rather disadvantaged positions. They seem concentrated in a few low‐skilled occupations that bring little prestige and low income. On the other hand, they were less affected by the financial crisis, in the sense that many of them maintained work, though some experienced lowering of salaries or reduction of working hours.