Bounding Estimates of Wage Discrimination

The Blinder Oaxaca decomposition method for defining discrimination from the wage equations of two groups has had a wide degree of application. However, the implication of this measure can very dramatically depending on the definition of the non-discriminatory wage chosen for comparison. This paper uses a form of extreme bounds analysis to define the limits on the measure of discrimination that can be obtained from these decompositions. A simple application is presented to demonstrate the use of the bootstrap to define the distributions of the discrimination measure.Extreme Bounds Analysis, Discrimination, Bootstrap

Clusters of Attributes and Well-Being in the US.

Using ARIMA models and entropy, the dynamic evolution of several functions of aggregate income and other attributes of well-being is analyzed for statistical "similarity" in order to determine potentially distinct dimensions in multidimensional analysis of welfare and quality of life in the US. The entropy metric compares entire distributions and is more general than principal components and other correlation-based techniques for clustering. To help macroeconomic policy makers, we compare the distribution of several composite measures of well-being, including income, with the distribution of some common measures of aggregate income over the period 1915-1995.Time Series, Information Measures, Aggregate Well-being,Entropy

Alernative Forms for Restricted Regressions

We study the relationship between group size and the extent of risk sharing in an insurance game played over a number of periods with random idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks to income in each period. Risk sharing is attained via agents that receive a high endowment in one period making unilateral transfers to agents that receive a low endowment in that period. The complete risk sharing allocation is for all agents to place their endowments in a common pool, which is then shared equally among members of the group in every period. Theoretically, the larger the group size, the smaller the per capita dispersion in consumption and greater is the potential value of insurance. Field evidence however suggests that smaller groups do better than larger groups as far as risk sharing is concerned. Results from our experiments show that the extent of mutual insurance is significantly higher in smaller groups, though contributions to the pool are never close to what complete risk sharing requires.Reciprocity Risk Sharing Group Size Experiments

Macroeconomic policy and income inequality: an error-correction representation

Fiscal policy ; Income distribution ; Monetary policy

Are net discount rates stationary?: some further evidence

Discount

"Patent Activity and Technical Change"

This paper presents an aggregate production function of the generalized Fechner-Thurstone (GFT) form to analyze the impact of an important component of intellectual industrial property, namely patent activity, on technical change in the USA for the period 1947-1981. We define a technology-changer as a variable that has an impact on the elasticity of the marginal rate of technical substitution (mrts) between inputs of the GFT production function over time. Various types of US patent grant activity, specifically total, domestic, foreign, successful and unsuccessful patents, are used as instruments for the technology-changer. Using the GFT specification, the impacts of various technology-changers on the elasticity of the mrts between inputs are estimated directly. It is found that granted (or successful) patents, patents granted to foreign companies and individuals, total patent applications, and even unsuccessful patent applications, have significant impacts on the rates at which inputs are substituted for each other over time in production.

Are net discount ratios stationary?: the implications for present value calculations

Wages ; Interest rates

Modelling International Tourist Arrivals and Volatility: An Application to Taiwan

International tourism is a major source of export receipts for many countries worldwide. Although it is not yet one of the most important industries in Taiwan (or the Republic of China), an island in East Asia off the coast of mainland China (or the People’s Republic of China), the leading tourism source countries for Taiwan are Japan, followed by USA, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, Germany and Australia. These countries reflect short, medium and long haul tourist destinations. Although the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong are large sources of tourism to Taiwan, the political situation is such that tourists from these two sources to Taiwan are reported as domestic tourists. Daily data from 1 January 1990 to 30 June 2007 are obtained from the National Immigration Agency of Taiwan. The Heterogeneous Autoregressive (HAR) model is used to capture long memory properties in the data. In comparison with the HAR(1) model, the estimated asymmetry coefficients for GJR(1,1) are not statistically significant for the HAR(1,7) and HAR(1,7,28) models, so that their respective GARCH(1,1) counterparts are to be preferred. These empirical results show that the conditional volatility estimates are sensitive to the long memory nature of the conditional mean specifications. Although asymmetry is observed for the HAR(1) model, there is no evidence of leverage. The QMLE for the GARCH(1,1), GJR(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) models for international tourist arrivals to Taiwan are statistically adequate and have sensible interpretations. However, asymmetry (though not leverage) was found only for the HAR(1)model, and not for the HAR(1,7) and HAR(1,7,28) models.

Confidence Intervals for Estimates of Elasticities

Elasticities are often estimated from the results of demand analysis however, drawing inferences from them may involve assumptions that could influence the outcome. In this paper we investigate one of the most common forms of elasticity which is defined as a ratio of estimated relationships and demonstrate how the Fieller method for the construction of confidence intervals can be used to draw inferences. We estimate the elasticities of expenditure from Engel curves using a variety of estimation models. Parametric Engel curves are modelled using OLS, MM robust regression, and Tobit. Semiparametric Engel curves are estimated using a penalized spline regression. We demonstrate the construction of confidence intervals of the expenditure elasticities for a series of expenditure levels as well as the estimated cumulative density function for the elasticity evaluated for a particular household.Engel curves, Fieller method, Tobit, robust regression, semiparametric