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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. This paper shows that a large fraction of the variability of emerging market bond spreads is explained by the evolution of global factors such as risk appetite (as reflected in the spread of high yield corporate bonds in developed markets), global liquidity (measured by the international interest rates) and contagion (from systemic events like the Russian default). This link has remained relatively stable over the history of the emerging market class, is robust to the inclusion of country-specific factors, and helps provide accurate long-run predictions. Overall, the results highlight the critical role played by exogenous factors in the evolution of the borrowing cost faced by emerging economies. Terms of use: Documents in G554--------dc21 JEL Classification Numbers: F34, E43, G15

This paper examines the effects of the expansion of the water network in urban shantytowns in Argentina. We find large reductions in the presence, frequency and severity of diarrhoea episodes among children reached by network expansions relative to a control group. Moreover, expanded connections induce savings in water expenditures, as these families are able to substitute piped water for more expensive and distant sources of water provision. These health and savings effects are also important for households that previously had clandestine self-connections to the water network, which were free but of low quality. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2008.

SummaryWe estimate versions of the Nelson–Siegel model of the yield curve of US government bonds using a Markov switching latent variable model that allows for discrete changes in the stochastic process followed by the interest rates. Our modeling approach is motivated by evidence suggesting the existence of breaks in the behavior of the US yield curve that depend, for example, on whether the economy is in a recession or a boom, or on the stance of monetary policy. Our model is parsimonious, relatively easy to estimate and flexible enough to match the changing shapes of the yield curve over time. We also derive the discrete time non‐arbitrage restrictions for the Markov switching model. We compare the forecasting performance of these models with that of the standard dynamic Nelson and Siegel model and an extension that allows the decay rate parameter to be time varying. We show that some parametrizations of our model with regime shifts outperform the single‐regime Nelson and Siegel model and other standard empirical models of the yield curve. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.