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作者：Carroll, CD; Dynan, KE; Krane, SD
作者单位：Johns Hopkins University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago
摘要：This paper examines precautionary behavior by relating job-loss risk to household net worth. We use existing best practice and some new strategies to deal with some problematic issues inherent in this literature regarding proxying uncertainty, instrumentation, and incorporating theoretical restrictions. We do not find precautionary variation in the wealth holdings of households with low permanent income, but do find precautionary effects for moderate and higher-income households. When the depe...
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作者：Beron, KJ; Murdoch, JC; Vijverberg, WPM
作者单位：University of Texas System; University of Texas Dallas
摘要：This paper develops a correlated probit model to describe dichotomous choices that may contain a public-goods component or same other forms of interdependency. The key contribution of the paper is to formulate tests for interdependent behavior among agents. In particular, we examine the decisions by nations whether or not to ratify the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Specifically, we reject free riding as a motive for not ratifying the Protocol, and we find little...
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作者：Calvet, L; Comon, E
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：Inspired by the recent literature on aggregation theory, this paper introduces HITS, a semiparametric model of consumer demand that allows for diversity in tastes. The strong variation of budget shares observed across income groups has two possible origins: the individual income effect, and taste differences between poor and rich households. Consumer surveys reporting repeated cross sections do not permit the direct measurement of these two effects. In HITS, linear heterogeneity allows the GMM...
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作者：Piehl, AM; Cooper, SJ; Braga, AA; Kennedy, DM
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：A youth homicide reduction initiative in Boston in the mid-1990s poses particular difficulties for program evaluation because it did not have a control group and the exact implementation date is unknown. A standard methodology in program evaluation is to use time series variation to compare pre- and postprogram outcomes. Such an approach is not valid, however, when the timing of program implementation or effect is unknown. To evaluate the Boston initiative, we adapt from the time series litera...
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作者：Kelly, MT; Ying, JS
作者单位：Villanova University; University of Delaware
摘要：This study provides empirical evidence concerning the economic feasibility of competition in the local market for video-delivery services. Using responses from the FCC's 1995 cost survey, we jointly estimate a translog cost function with factor share equations. To evaluate subadditivity, the fitted total cost of each firm is compared with the cost of two firms providing the same total output in eleven different market scenarios. Although costs were mildly superadditive, in the vast majority of...
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作者：Ravallion, M
作者单位：The World Bank
摘要：In a cross-country data set for developing and transitional economies, private consumption per capita from the national accounts deviates on average from mean household income or expenditure based on national sample surveys. Growth rates also differ systematically, so that the ratio of the survey mean to mean consumption from the national accounts tends to fall over time. The exceptions to these general findings are revealing, however. There are strong regional effects. The aggregate differenc...
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作者：Brynjolfsson, E; Hitt, LM
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of Pennsylvania
摘要：We explore the effect of computerization on productivity and output growth using data from 527 large U.S. firms over 1987-1994. We find that computerization makes a contribution to measured productivity and output growth in the short term (using 1-year differences) that is consistent with normal returns to computer investments. However, the productivity and output contributions associated with computerization are up to 5 times greater over long periods (using 5- to 7-year differences). The res...
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作者：Nilsen, OA; Schiantarelli, F
作者单位：University of Bergen; Boston College
摘要：The objective of this paper is to investigate if and how capital adjustment departs from the smooth pattern implied by standard model based on convex adjustment costs. Using Norwegian micro data, we start by documenting the intermittent and lumpy nature of investment rates. We then present two pieces of econometric evidence on these issues. First, we estimate a discrete hazard model to determine the probability of having an episode of high investment, conditional on the length of the interval ...
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作者：Bond, S; Elston, JA; Mairesse, J; Mulkay, B
作者单位：University of Oxford; State University System of Florida; University of Central Florida; Universite des Antilles; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; ENSAE Paris
摘要：We construct company panel data sets for manufacturing firms in Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, covering the period 1978-1989. These data sets are used to estimate empirical investment equations, and to investigate the role played by financial factors in each country. A robust finding is that cash flow and profits terms appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more significant in the United Kingdom than in the three continental European countries. This is consistent...
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作者：Mustard, DB
作者单位：University System of Georgia; University of Georgia
摘要：Recently many papers have used the arrest rate to measure punishments in crime-rate regressions. However, arrest rates account for only a portion of the criminal sanction. Conviction rates and time served are theoretically important, but rarely used, and excluding them generates omitted variable bias if they are correlated with the arrest rate. This paper uses the most complete set of conviction and sentencing data to show that arrest rates are negatively correlated with these normally exclude...
