Recovering the sunk costs of R&D: the moulds industry case

Sunk costs for R&D are an important determinant of the level of innovation in the economy. In this paper I recover them using a Markov equilibrium framework. The contribution is twofold. First, a model of industry dynamics which accounts for selection into R&D, capital accumulation and entry/exit is proposed. The industry state is summarized by an aggregate state with the advantage that it avoids the "curse of dimensionality". Second, the estimated sunk costs of R&D for the Portuguese moulds industry are shown to be important (3.4 million Euros). They become particularly relevant since the industry is mostly populated by small firms. Institutional changes in the early 1990s generated an increase in demand from European car makers and created the incentives for firms to pay the costs of investment. Trade-induced innovation reinforced the selection effect by which international trade leads to productivity growth. Finally, using the estimated parameters, simulations evaluate the effects of changes in market size, sunk costs and entry costs

Selection on the basis of prior testing

We establish that under mild conditions, testing for the individual significance of an impulse indicator in the conditional model, selected on the basis of prior testing of its significance in the impulse saturated marginal model does not require bootstrapping critical values. Extensive Monte Carlo evidence shows that the real size of a joint F test in the conditional on the block of dummies retained from the marginal is independent of nominal size used for impulse saturation used in the marginal model. The findings are shown to hold for a plethora of dynamic models and sample sizes. Such results are fundamental not only in model selection theory, but also for the emerging class of automatically computable super exogeneity tests.model selection; impulse saturation, super exogeneity; bootstrapping

A note on the Monte Carlo assessment of Impulse Saturation with fat tailed distribution

Monte Carlo evidence is provided as to the efficiency of the impulse saturation estimator in a location-scale model with heavy-tailed distributions. Comparisons show that the IS estimator is always more efficient than the OLS and can even outperform the Method of Moments estimator in some instances.nonnormality; impulse saturation; robust estimation

The Euro Sovereign Debt Crisis, Determinants of Default Probabilities and Implied Ratings in the CDS Market: An Econometric Analysis

In this paper we take an innovative econometric look at the Euro Zone Sovereign Debt Crisis. We are particularly interested in understanding which determinants have led investors to ask for higher yields on sovereign debt from the Euro shatter belt. We dismiss the definition of speculation previously used in the literature, on the basis of the irrelevance of Granger Causality as an operational tool for this purpose. Instead, we suggest that speculative behavior would only exist if market assessment would be unrelated to economic fundamentals of such countries. Using a cross section of countries, we improve on the scarce literature on the Econometrics of Credit Default Swap Markets on sovereign debt. Firstly, we use an ordered probit model to determine whether economic fundamentals are driving the implied rating assessments. Secondly, we provide a pioneering application of quantile regression to this domain, to determine which variables matter at different conditional quantiles of the implied default probability distribution. Finally, Fisher’s Z statistic is used to relate bond markets to domestic saving rates. Overall, the different methodologies support the conclusion that the domestic savings rate is lenders’ main concern. Economies with worse saving habits are penalized both in the CDS market, and in the sovereign bonds markets. Notwithstanding, for countries on the top quantiles of the implied default probabilities, public debt and external debt also play a significant role, increasing the likelihood of higher insurance premium in the derivatives market. When looking at the Portuguese Case it seems clear that public policies that fail to take savings into proper account shall always be deemed to fail, as the country had the lowest net savings rate in the EU27 in 2008, followed closely by Greece.sovereign debt; Euro Area; Credit Default Swaps; Quantile Regression; Ordered Probit; savings rate

The euro sovereign debt crisis, determinants of default probabilities and implied ratings in the CDS market: an econometric analysis

In this paper we take an innovative econometric look at the Euro Zone Sovereign Debt Crisis. We are particularly interested in understanding which determinants have led investors to ask for higher yields on sovereign debt from the Euro shatter belt. We dismiss the definition of speculation previously used in the literature, on the basis of the irrelevance of Granger Causality as an operational tool for this purpose. Instead, we suggest that speculative behavior would only exist if market assessment would be unrelated to economic fundamentals of such countries. Using a cross section of countries, we improve on the scarce literature on the Econometrics of Credit Default Swap Markets on sovereign debt. Firstly, we use an ordered probit model to determine whether economic fundamentals are driving the implied rating assessments. Secondly, we provide a pioneering application of quantile regression to this domain, to determine which variables matter at different conditional quantiles of the implied default probability distribution. Finally, Fisher’s Z statistic is used to relate bond markets to domestic saving rates. Overall, the different methodologies support the conclusion that the domestic savings rate is lenders’ main concern. Economies with worse saving habits are penalized both in the CDS market, and in the sovereign bonds markets. Notwithstanding, for countries on the top quantiles of the implied default probabilities, public debt and external debt also play a significant role, increasing the likelihood of higher insurance premium in the derivatives market. When looking at the Portuguese Case it seems clear that public policies that fail to take savings into proper account shall always be deemed to fail, as the country had the lowest net savings rate in the EU27 in 2008, followed closely by Greece.sovereign debt; Euro Area; Credit Default Swaps; Quantile Regression; Ordered Probit; savings rate

Recovering the Sunk Costs of R&D: the Moulds Industry Case

Sunk costs for R&D are an important determinant of the level of innovation in the economy. In this paper I recover them using a Markov equilibrium framework. The contribution is twofold. First, a model of industry dynamics which accounts for selection into R&D, capital accumulation and entry/exit is proposed. The industry state is summarized by an aggregate state with the advantage that it avoids the "curse of dimensionality". Second, the estimated sunk costs of R&D for the Portuguese moulds industry are shown to be important (3.4 million Euros). They become particularly relevant since the industry is mostly populated by small firms. Institutional changes in the early 1990s generated an increase in demand from European car makers and created the incentives for firms to pay the costs of investment. Trade-induced innovation reinforced the selection effect by which international trade leads to productivity growth. Finally, using the estimated parameters, simulations evaluate the effects of changes in market size, sunk costs and entry costs.Aggregate state, industry dynamics, Markov equilibrium, moulds industry, R&D, structural estimation, sunk costs

The Implicit Function Theorem for continuous functions

In the present paper we obtain a new homological version of the implicit function theorem and some versions of the Darboux theorem. Such results are proved for continuous maps on topological manifolds. As a consequence, some versions of these classic theorems are proved when we consider differenciable (not necessarily C^1) maps.Comment: 9 pages, no figure