Gearing Up to Spend Down: A Foundation in the Midst of Paradigm Shifts

In 2004, The AVI CHAI Foundation set itself on a course to expend its full endowment and complete its philanthropic work by the end of its 36th year, in early 2020. That work is devoted to strengthening Judaism, Jewish literacy, and Jewish tradition in North America, Israel, and the former Soviet Union, and to encouraging mutual understanding among Jews of different backgrounds and commitments. (Additional information about AVI CHAI can be found at vichai.org.)When it started the spend-down, the Foundation's Board of Trustees sought guidance from scholarly and management literature on how to govern the terminal years of a limited-life foundation. Learning that such literature was scant, the Board offered to make AVI CHAI's own experience available to researchers, allowing them to document the Foundation's choices, the challenges it faces, and the ways in which it tries to bring about an orderly, effective conclusion worthy of the generous vision of its founding donor, Zalman Chaim Bernstein, z'l. This is the second in what is expected to be a series of annual installments in that research

Non-Asymptotic Inference in Instrumental Variables Estimation

This paper presents a simple method for carrying out inference in a wide variety of possibly nonlinear IV models under weak assumptions. The method is non-asymptotic in the sense that it provides a finite sample bound on the difference between the true and nominal probabilities of rejecting a correct null hypothesis. The method is a non-Studentized version of the Anderson-Rubin test but is motivated and analyzed differently. In contrast to the conventional Anderson-Rubin test, the method proposed here does not require restrictive distributional assumptions, linearity of the estimated model, or simultaneous equations. Nor does it require knowledge of whether the instruments are strong or weak. It does not require testing or estimating the strength of the instruments. The method can be applied to quantile IV models that may be nonlinear and can be used to test a parametric IV model against a nonparametric alternative. The results presented here hold in finite samples, regardless of the strength of the instruments.Comment: 33 pages, 5 table

First Annual Report to the Avi Chai Foundation on the Progress of Its Decision to Spend Down

First Annual Report to the AVI CHAI Foundation after making a decision to Spend Down

Semiparametric models

Much empirical research is concerned with estimating conditional mean, median, or hazard functions. For example, labor economists are interested in estimating the mean wages of employed individuals conditional on characteristics such as years of work experience and education. The most frequently used estimation methods assume that the function of interest is known up to a set of constant parameters that can be estimated from data. Models in which the only unknown quantities are a finite set of constant parameters are called parametric. The use of a parametric model greatly simplifies estimation, statistical inference, and interpretation of the estimation results but is rarely justified by theoretical or other a priori considerations. Estimation and inference based on convenient but incorrect assumptions about the form of the conditional mean function can be highly misleading. --

OUTLOOK FOR LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY IN 2010

Livestock Production/Industries,

A charging study of ACTS using NASCAP

The NASA Charging Analyzer Program (NASCAP) computer code is a three dimensional finite element charging code designed to analyze spacecraft charging in the magnetosphere. Because of the characteristics of this problem, NASCAP can use an quasi-static approach to provide a spacecraft designer with an understanding of how a specific spacecraft will interact with a geomagnetic substorm. The results of the simulation can help designers evaluate the probability and location of arc discharges of charged surfaces on the spacecraft. A charging study of NASA's Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) using NASCAP is reported. The results show that the ACTS metalized multilayer insulating blanket design should provide good electrostatic discharge control