ON THE PERFORMANCE OF NONPARAMETRIC SPECIFICATION TESTS IN REGRESSION MODELS

Some recently developed nonparametric specification tests for regression models are described in a unified way. The common characteristic of these tests is that they are consistent against any alternative hypothesis. The performance of the test statistics is compared by means of Monte Carlo simulations, analysing how heteroskedasticity, number of regressors and bandwidth selection influence the results. The statistics which do not use a bandwidth perform slightly better if the regression model has only one regressor; otherwise, some of the statistics which use a bandwidth behave better if the bandwidth is chosen adequately. These statistics are applied to test the specification of three commonly used Mincer-type wage equations with Uruguayan and Spanish data; all of them are rejected.

ON THE PERFORMANCE OF NONPARAMETRIC SPECIFICATION TESTS IN REGRESSION MODELS

Some recently developed nonparametric specification tests for regression models are described in a unified way. The common characteristic of these tests is that they are consistent against any alternative hypothesis. The performance of the test statistics is compared by means of Monte Carlo simulations, analysing how heteroskedasticity, number of regressors and bandwidth selection influence the results. The statistics which do not use a bandwidth perform slightly better if the regression model has only one regressor; otherwise, some of the statistics which use a bandwidth behave better if the bandwidth is chosen adequately. These statistics are applied to test the specification of three commonly used Mincer-type wage equations with Uruguayan and Spanish data; all of them are rejected.

ECONOMETRIC MODELLING FOR SIMULATING THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF STRUCTURAL REFORMS IN ROMANIA: A PILOT PROJECT

The aim of this research to set up a system which helps to estimate the impact of public funding from projects. The impact depends on all factors affecting demand for the good or service provided under the structural intervention at stake. Thus, the present research provides a pilot econometric model for simulating the main mechanisms that lead to public investment impact from the perspective of 42 counties for the year 2006. The importance of this time span is due to the fact that it represents the end of the second programming period for European Union funds and it reveals the impact of economic structural measures at microeconomic level. Data observed to estimate the linear regression model contain at least 50 observations and the t test, the F test and the coefficients of determination are used to analyse the worthiness of the model after prior estimation of the parameters. Findings showed that the independent element of the model is unbiased, whilst the regression coefficient is biased.econometric modeling, public spending, evaluation, monitoring, pilot project, micoreconomics

Regional Inflation Persistence: Evidence from Italy

Regional patterns of inflation persistence have received attention only at a very coarse level of territorial disaggregation, that of EMU member states. However economic disparities within EMU member states are an equally important policy issue. This paper considers a country with a large regional divide, i.e., Italy, at a fine level of territorial disaggregation (NUTS3). Our results show that economically backward regions display greater inflation persistence. Moreover, we show that higher persistence is linked to a lower degree of competitiveness in the retail sector.inflation persistence, retail sector, regions.