Using a probabilistic approach for exploring latent patterns in high-dimensional co-occurrence data, topic models offer researchers a flexible and open framework for soft-clustering large data sets. In recent years, there has been a growing interest among marketing scholars and practitioners to adopt topic models in various marketing application domains. However, to this date, there is no comprehensive overview of this rapidly evolving field. By analyzing a set of 61 published papers along with conceptual contributions, we systematically review this highly heterogeneous area of research. In doing so, we characterize extant contributions employing topic models in marketing along the dimensions data structures and retrieval of input data, implementation and extensions of basic topic models, and model performance evaluation. Our findings confirm that there is considerable progress done in various marketing sub-areas. However, there is still scope for promising future research, in particular with respect to integrating multiple, dynamic data sources, including time-varying covariates and the combination of exploratory topic models with powerful predictive marketing models.

This paper studies the gap in wealth between male and female single households using 2010 Household Finance and Consumption Survey data for eight European countries. In the raw data, a large gap emerges at the upper end of the unconditional distribution. While OLS estimates show no difference in average net wealth levels, quantile regressions at the 95th percentile yield mixed evidence for the gender wealth gap in different specifications. Labour market characteristics and participation in asset and debt categories largely explain the differences between male and female single households. The gender gap in net wealth is driven by gaps in gross wealth and its components, but is attenuated in four countries by gender gaps in (collateralized) debt. In the full specification, the unexplained gap in gross wealth amounts to 27 percent in Slovakia, 33 percent in France, 44 percent in Austria, 45 percent in Germany, and 48 percent in Greece.

This paper empirically assesses determinants of countries' fiscal rules suggested by the political science, sociology, and economics literature. We find several of these variables to be related to the stringency of fiscal rules, providing indirect evidence for the relevance of governments' deficit bias. These determinants may also serve as instruments in models with (endogenous) fiscal rules as explanatory variable.

We evaluate the external effects of 183 large mergers at the market level by assessing the impact on the main competitors of the merging firms. Using synthetic control groups and difference in difference estimation, we find that the return on assets of rival firms increases significantly after a merger. The size of the effect varies strongly with market characteristics and the intensity of competition.

Okun's Law postulates an inverse relationship between movements of the unemployment rate and the real gross domestic product (GDP). In this article we investigate Okun's law for 15 OECD countries and check for its structural stability. By using data on employment and the labor force we infer whether structural instability is caused either from the the demand side or the supply side. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

This note demonstrates that the shocks explicitly modeled as well as those implicitly present in stochastic macro-models must obey a restriction derived from Walras' law. In the standard case of statistical independence of real and monetary shocks there must be a financial shock to bond demand that mirrors those shocks, bond holdings thus acting in fact as buffer stocks. As an example the choice of the optimal monetary instrument is examined for the converse case of buffer-stock money and compared with the standard case. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

This research explores both industry and temporal aspects of entry, exit and industry turbulence in Austrian manufacturing in the period between 1981 to 1994. It is shown that while the net entry of both firms and establishments is quite stable over time, exit and especially the turnover and volatility of firms is influenced more by temporal effects. A regression analysis into the determinants of industry dynamics associated with entry and exit shows that sunk costs, scale economies and industry growth are primary determinants for different entry and exit regimes across 2-digit sectors, while profitability is found to be significant for dynamics related to exit but not for the entry of firms. The net entry dynamics of firms and establishments are found to be different in regard to capital intensity and profitability. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

This paper investigates whether the inherent non-stationarity of macroeconomic time series is entirely due to a random walk or also to non-linear components. Applying the numerical tools of the analysis of dynamical systems to long time series for the US, we reject the hypothesis that these series are generated solely by a linear stochastic process. Contrary to the Real Business Cycle theory that attributes the irregular behavior of the system to exogenous random factors, we maintain that the fluctuations in the time series we examined cannot be explained only by means of external shocks plugged into linear autoregressive models. A dynamical and non-linear explanation may be useful for the double aim of describing and forecasting more accurately the evolution of the system. Linear growth models that find empirical verification on linear econometric analysis, are therefore seriously called in question. Conversely non-linear dynamical models may enable us to achieve a more complete information about economic phenomena from the same data sets used in the empirical analysis which are in support of Real Business Cycle Theory. We conclude that Real Business Cycle theory and more in general the unit root autoregressive models are an inadequate device for a satisfactory understanding of economic time series. A theoretical approach grounded on non-linear metric methods, may however allow to identify non-linear structures that endogenously generate fluctuations in macroeconomic time series. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

Okun's Law postulates an inverse relationship between movements of the unemployment rate and the real gross domestic product (GDP). Empirical estimates for US data indicate that a two to three percent GDP growth rate above the natural or average GDP growth rate causes unemployment to decrease by one percentage point and vice versa. In this investigation we check whether this postulated relationship exhibits structural breaks by means of Markov-Chain Monte Carlo methods. We estimate a regression model, where the parameters are allowed to switch between different states and the switching process is Markov. As a by-product we derive an estimate of the current state within the periods considered. Using quarterly Austrian data on unemployment and real GDP from 1977 to 1995 we infer only one state, i.e. there are no structural breaks. The estimated parameters demand for an excess GDP growth rate of 4.16% to decrease unemployment by one percentage point. Since only one state is inferred, we conclude that the Austrian economy exhibits a stable relationship between unemployment and GDP growth. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

Wage policy and the structure of collective bargaining systems have been neglected in the political and economic discussions that centered around the European Monetary Union (EMU) to an amazing extent. Collective bargaining is one of the very few issues that have been explicitly excluded from the Maastricht treaty as subject of European regulation and only recently, wage policy under the conditions of a European Monetary Union has been considered at closer range. Yet, this has been done without putting the topic into a more general perspective. In this paper, I want to expose a 'theory of optimal wage areas', taking reference to Robert Mundell's seminal paper on 'optimum currency areas'. I want to pose the question whether the European Union can be regarded as an 'optimum wage area' and what will be the consequences for EMU. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series