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Retail investors use information provided by mutual fund rating agencies to make investment decisions. This paper aims to examine whether the ratings provide useful information to retail investors by analyzing the rating migration and closure risk of mutual funds that received Morningstar’s mutual fund ratings from 2005 to 2012.

The research design differentiates between buy-and-hold investment strategies and dynamic investment strategies. To assess the information content of mutual fund ratings for buy-and-hold investment strategies, the rating migration based on the first and the last mutual fund rating during two-, four-, six- and eight-year horizons is determined. With respect to dynamic investment strategies, the number of rating changes per fund on a monthly basis during these time horizons is calculated.

Mutual fund rating persistence is low or even inexistent, in particular, during longer time periods. Only for lower-rated funds, the rating appears to indicate higher risk of fund closure. In addition, mutual funds face a large number of up to 38 monthly rating changes in the eight-year window.

Mutual fund rating persistence has hardly been analyzed for funds offered to retail investors so far. This paper clearly points out that because of the extensive rating migration and the high number of monthly rating changes, retail investors barely benefit from using mutual fund ratings.

I study state dependence in social assistance receipt in Germany using annual survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the years 1995–2011. There is considerable observed state dependence, with an average persistence rate in benefits of 68 per cent comparing to an average entry rate of just above 3 per cent. To identify a possible structural component, I estimate a series of dynamic random-effects probit models that control for observed and unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity of initial conditions. I find evidence of substantial structural state dependence in benefit receipt. Estimates suggest that benefit receipt one year ago is associated with an increase in the likelihood of benefit receipt today by a factor of 3.4. This corresponds to an average partial effect of 13 percentage points. Average predicted entry and persistence rates and the absolute level of structural state dependence are higher in Eastern Germany than in Western Germany. I find only little evidence for time variation in state dependence around the years of the Hartz reforms.

This paper aims to analyse the persistence of the S&P500 and DAX 30 stock indices as well as of the Fed’s Effective Federal Funds rate and of the European Central Bank’s Marginal Lending Facility rate, and the long-run linkages between stock prices and interest rates in the USA and Europe, respectively.

The methodology is based on the concepts of fractional integration and cointegration.

Using monthly data from January 1999 to December 2022, the results can be summarised as follows. All series examined are non-stationary: stock prices are found to be I(1) while interest rates display orders of integration substantially above 1, which implies a rejection of the hypothesis of mean reversion in all cases examined.

This paper uses an appropriate econometric framework to obtain new, reliable empirical evidence. All four series are highly persistent, and mean reversion does not occur in any single case. Moreover, the fractional cointegration analysis suggests that stock prices and interest rates are not linked in the long run.

This chapter analyzes the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into different prices for 12 euro area (EA) countries. We provide new up-to-date estimates of ERPT by paying attention to either the time-series properties of data and variables endogeneity. Using VECM framework, we examine the pass-through at different stages along the distribution chain, that is, import prices, producer prices, and consumer prices. When carrying out impulse response functions analysis, we find a higher pass-through to import prices with a complete pass-through (after one year) detected for roughly half of EA countries. These estimates are relatively large compared to single-equation literature. We denote that the magnitude of the pass-through of exchange rate shocks declines along the distribution chain of pricing, with the modest effect recorded for consumer prices. When assessing for the determinant of cross-country differences in the ERPT, we find that inflation level, inflation volatility, and exchange rate persistence are the main macroeconomic factors influencing the pass-through almost along the pricing chain. Thereafter, we have tested for the decline of the response of consumer prices across EA countries. According to multivariate time-series Chow test, the stability of ERPT coefficients was rejected, and the impulse responses of consumer prices over 1990–2010 provide an evidence of general decline in rates of pass-through in most of the EA countries. Finally, using the historical decompositions, our results reveal that external factors, that is, exchange rate and import prices shocks, have had important inflationary impacts on inflation since 1999 compared to the pre-EMU period.

This study aims to investigate, for the first time in the literature, the stochastic properties of the US aggregate health-care price inflation rate series, using the data on health-care inflation rates for a panel of 17 major US urban areas for the period 1966-2006.

This goal is undertaken by applying the first- and second-generation panel unit root tests and the panel stationary test developed recently by Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. (2005) that allows for endogenously determined multiple structural breaks and is flexible enough to control for the presence of cross-sectional dependence.

The empirical findings indicate that after controlling for the presence of cross-sectional dependence, finite sample bias, and asymptotic normality, the US aggregate health-care price inflation rate series can be characterized as a non-stationary process and not as a regime-wise stationary innovation process.

The research findings apply to understanding of health-care sector price escalation in US urban areas. These findings have timely implications for the understanding of the data structure and, therefore, constructs of economic models of urban health-care price inflation rates. The results confirming the presence of a unit root indicating a high degree of inflationary persistence in the health sector suggests need for further studies on health-care inflation rate persistence using the alternative measures of persistence. This study’s conclusions do not apply to non-urban areas.

The mean and variance of US urban health-care inflation rate are not constant. Therefore, insurers and policy rate setters need good understanding of the interplay of the various factors driving the explosive health-care insurance rates over the large US metropolitan landscape. The study findings have implications for health-care insurance premium rate setting, health-care inflation econometric modeling and forecasting.

Payers (private and public employers) of health-care insurance rates in US urban areas should evaluate the value of benefits received in relation to the skyrocketing rise of health-care insurance premiums.

This is the first empirical research focusing on the shape of urban health-care inflation rates in the USA.

The purpose of this paper is to share the research on the use of service-learning pedagogy as a strategy to promote engaged learning that positively impacts resilience. It purports that although often overlooked as a teaching and learning strategy, service-learning offers a viable method for supporting persistence and resiliency in largely minority population.

The research utilizes data from both quantitative and qualitative measures (surveys/questionnaires and open ended responses collected from focus groups). The data were collected over 15 months from undergraduate students who represent 5 different content areas (nursing, public health, psychology, nutrition and physical education).

The data revealed that students positively favor service-learning pedagogy and value the tenets of civic responsibility and social justice. These outcomes contribute to a positive impact on persistence and resiliency.

This research highlights the findings from a small group of students enrolled in a specialized program, therefore may lack generalizability. Future research should replicate the study on a larger scale.

This paper includes both theoretical foundational knowledge and practical applications to support faculty teaching and learning. Additionally, it seeks to support and increase understanding of strategies that positively impact persistence and resilience constructs.

The social implications of this research reflect an understanding of the inherent needs of students from underrepresented and/or underserved populations.

This paper fills a void in the literature at the higher education level, by offering specific strategies, which focus on methods to support resilience through increased student engagement, civic responsibility and critical thinking. Additionally, historically black colleges and universities are among the least empirically examined institutions in American higher education.

Based on empirical patterns of annual earnings and saving from new micro-data covering a large sample of American workers around a hundred years ago, we develop a model for simulating the cross-section distribution of wealth at the turn of the twentieth century. Our methodology allows for a direct comparison with the wealth distribution from a sample of families in a comparable part of the contemporary income distribution. Our primary finding is that patterns of wealth accumulation among American workers at the turn of the century bear a striking resemblance to contemporary profiles.

The paper aims to show that active labour market policies in Scotland over a nine‐year period have failed to meet key policy objectives.

The paper uses the UK national online manpower information system (NOMIS) to conduct a detailed statistical analysis of the spatial differentials in exits from and entry to unemployment across 72 Parliamentary constituencies. The analysis is conducted by reference to the concepts of convergence, NAIRU and hysterisis.

The findings suggest a presence of hysterisis and absence of spatial convergence such that some areas in Scotland have become worse off in terms of the risk of unemployment and despite active labour market intervention.

Future research needs to be undertaken at the micro‐spatial level to confirm these findings and to focus on the weaknesses in the design of active labour market policies.

Active labour market policies in Scotland do not work in terms of reducing the risk of unemployment. Policy needs to focus on creating demand for labour rather than an almost exclusive reliance on “promoting” the supply‐side.

The key contribution of this paper is that it is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the Government's own data on unemployment distribution – it should be of value to both academicians and policy makers in terms of both analytical approach and policy design.

This paper aims to outline foundational research on adult transition theory and transfer shock in higher education to provide the reader with a theoretical and practical framework for the library-focused articles in this special issue.

This paper is a review of relevant higher education literature related to transfer shock and core research related to adult transitional theory.

Transition is a period in-between moments of stability. The state of confusion and disorientation caused by the transition of transfer students from one academic culture to another is a form of culture shock known as transfer shock. “Transfer shock” refers to the decline in academic performance by transfer students immediately following transition to an institution of higher education and the corresponding recovery prevalent for most students in succeeding semesters. Recent studies have expanded the definition of transfer shock to include the academic and social factors that contribute to attrition and lack of degree persistence. Key factors that correlate to transfer students’ success or failure include gender, race, time of transfer, GPA, prior academic success, faculty collaboration, level of engagement with degree program and campus support.

Although most literature on transfer students published by librarians includes literature reviews citing relevant articles, it lacks an extensive literature review collecting research from social science and education literature.

This article analyzes transitions into and out of social assistance (SA) in Canada. We estimate dynamic probit models, controlling for endogenous initial conditions and unobserved heterogeneity, using longitudinal data extracted from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the years 1993–2010. The data indicate that there are substantial provincial differences in SA participation with higher participation rates in the eastern part of the country. However, since the mid-1990s, participation rates have fallen substantially in all provinces with only a modest increase at the end of the observation period. Results from the probit models suggest that there is a significant time dependency in social assistance, even after controlling for endogenous initial conditions and unobserved heterogeneity. The extent of this state dependence varies across provinces.