This article estimates peer influences on the alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use of UK adolescents. We present evidence of large, positive and statistically significant peer effects in all three behaviours when classmates are taken as the reference group. We also find large, positive and statistically significant associations between own substance use and friends' substance use. When both reference groups are considered simultaneously, the influence of classmates either disappears or is much reduced, whereas the association between own and friends' behaviours does not change. The suggestion is that classmate behaviour is primarily relevant only inasmuch as it proxies for friends' behaviour.

We empirically analyze the impact of product market competition on the responsiveness of inflation to macroeconomic imbalances. If competition is high the response of inflation to lagged inflation, unemployment and import prices is reduced, while inflation is more responsive to changes in productivity growth in countries in which competition is above the OECD average. Given the (‘good luck’) macroeconomic trajectories of the 1990s–2000s, the structural reforms that made goods markets more competitive improved the ability of OECD economies to smooth (dis)inflationary shocks, while changes in the monetary policy framework had a modest role in taming inflation during the Great Moderation.

Humanitarian aid can be seen as a political investment motivated by altruism or by economic benefits for the donor. Uncertainty in the returns to this investment may generate hysteresis effects and inertia in aid allocations. I model the allocation decisions of the three largest humanitarian aid donors: the US government, the UK government and the European Commission, finding evidence that allocations depend on both recipient need and donor economic interest. Some donors exhibit more inertia than others, and some are more influenced by the decisions of other donors. Despite being a relatively small donor, the UK is particularly influential.

This article explores the comovement of the economic activity of several OECD countries during periods of large negative and positive growth. Extremal dependence measures are here applied to assess the degree of cross-country tail dependence of output growth rates. Our main empirical findings are: (i) cross-country tail dependence is much stronger during periods of large negative growth, than during the ones of large positive growth; (ii) cross-country growth is asymptotically independent; (iii) cross-country tail dependence is considerably stronger than the one arising from a Gaussian dependence model. In addition, our results suggest that, among the typical determinants for explaining international output growth synchronization, only economic specialization similarity seems to play a role during such extreme periods.

This article analyzes how monetary policy has responded to exchange rate movements in six open economies, paying particular attention to the two-way interaction between monetary policy and the exchange rate. We address this issue using a structural VAR model that is identified using a combination of sign and short-term (zero) restrictions. Doing so we find that, while there is a instantaneous reaction in the exchange rate following a monetary policy shock in all countries, monetary policy responds significantly on impact to an exchange rate shock in only four of the six countries.

We study the earnings losses of Finnish private sector workers who lost their jobs at two very different points in the business cycle. The first group wdisplad in 1992 (depression period) and the second one in 1997 (recovery period). The focal point of the analysis is the quantile displacement effect, the change in the earnings distribution due to involuntary job separation. We use mass layoffs and plant closures to identify groups of workers who were displaced from exogenous causes. The effect of displacement is strongest at the lower end of the earnings distribution and small or negligible at the upper end. Workers displaced during the depression period are subject to much larger earnings losses.

The job search literature suggests that on-the-job search reduces the probability of un employed people finding jobs. However, there is little evidence that employed and unemployed job seekers are similar or apply for the same jobs. We compare employed and unemployed job seekers in their individual characteristics, preferences over working hours, job-search strategies and employment histories, and identify how differences vary over the business cycle. We find systematic differences which persist over the business cycle. Our results are consistent with a segmented labour market in which employed and unemployed job seekers are unlikely to directly compete with each other for jobs.

Empirical growth regressions typically include mean years of schooling as a proxy for human capital. However, empirical research often finds that the sign and significance of schooling depends on the sample of observations or the specification of the model. We use a non-parametric local-linear regression estimator and a non-parametric variable relevance test to conduct a rigorous and systematic search for significance of mean years of schooling by examining five of the most comprehensive schooling databases. Contrary to a few recent articles that have identified significant nonlinearities between education and growth, our results suggest that mean years of schooling is not a statistically relevant variable in growth regressions. However, we do find evidence (within a cross-sectional framework), that educational achievement, measured by mean test scores, may provide a more reliable measure of human capital than mean years of schooling.

This article analyses the effect of competition from low-wage countries on domestic activity, using data on 230 Italian manufacturing sectors between 1995 and 2007. It finds that low-wage import penetration is negatively related to employment and other measures of activity. The effect is significantly smaller in more skill, capital and R&D-intensive sectors and in more vertically differentiated sectors. There is also evidence of significant effects of low-wage competition through inter-industry linkages: employment is negatively related to low-wage import penetration in downstream sectors but positively related to low-wage import penetration in upstream sectors.

Combined density nowcasts for quarterly Euro-area GDP growth are produced based on the real-time performance of component models. Components are distinguished by their use of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’, aggregate and disaggregate, indicators. We consider the accuracy of the density nowcasts as within-quarter indicator data accumulate. We find that the relative utility of ‘soft’ indicators surged during the recession. But as this instability was hard to detect in real-time it helps, when producing density nowcasts unknowing any within-quarter ‘hard’ data, to weight the different indicators equally. On receipt of ‘hard’ data for the second month in the quarter better calibrated densities are obtained by giving a higher weight in the combination to ‘hard’ indicators.

In the extensive job search literature, studies assume either sequential or non-sequential search. This article introduces a novel method to test the hypothesis that firms search sequentially based on the relationship between the number of rejected job applicants and the number of filled vacancies. We distinguish between ten different search methods. For most search methods, including methods that rely on social networks and temporary help agencies, we find that sequential search cannot be rejected. However, when firms use advertising or public/private employment agencies, sequential search is rejected. Hence, we find that both forms of search are relevant for our understanding of the labour market. Further, the form of search is closely related to the search method used.

In this article we study the social norms to abstain from cheating on the state via benefit fraud and tax evasion. We interpret these norms (called benefit morale and tax morale) as moral goods, and derive testable hypotheses on whether their demand is determined by prices. Employing a large survey data set from OECD-member countries we provide robust evidence that the demand responds to price proxy variables as predicted by theory. The main general conclusion of this article is that social norms (which are widely accepted as determinants of individual economic behaviour) are themselves influenced by economic factors.

This article aims to provide some empirical guidelines for the practical implementation of right-tailed unit root tests, focusing on the recursive right-tailed ADF test of Phillips et al. (2011b). We analyze and compare the limit theory of the recursive test under different hypotheses and model specifications. The size and power properties of the test under various scenarios are examined and some recommendations for empirical practice are given. Some new results on the consistent estimation of localizing drift exponents are obtained, which are useful in assessing model specification. Empirical applications to stock markets illustrate these specification issues and reveal their practical importance in testing.

The fact that unemployed workers have different abilities to smooth consumption entails heterogeneous responses to extended unemployment benefits. Our empirical exercise explores a quasi-experimental setting generated by an increase in the benefits entitlement period. The results suggest a hump-shape response of unemployment duration over the one-year pre-unemployment wage distribution; individuals at the bottom and top of the wage distribution reacted less than those in the interquartile range. This behaviour of job searchers is consistent with labour supply models with unemployment insurance and savings. It questions the optimality of very long entitlement periods to target the unemployment experiences of low-wage workers.

We propose an iterative decomposition that tests and accounts for multiple structural breaks in the mean, seasonality, dynamics and conditional volatility, while also accounting for outliers. Considering each component separately within each iteration leads to greater flexibility compared with joint procedures. Monte Carlo analysis shows the procedure performs well. Applied to monthly CPI inflation in G7 countries and the Euro area, we uncover mean and seasonality breaks for all countries and, allowing for these, changes in persistence are generally also indicated. Further, volatility reductions are widespread in the early to mid 1980s, with some countries exhibiting increases from 1999 onwards.

I employ a parsimonious model with learning, but without conditioning information, to extract time-varying measures of market-risk sensitivities, pricing errors and pricing uncertainty. The evolution of these quantities has interesting implications for macroeconomic dynamics. Parameters estimated for US equity portfolios display significant low-frequency fluctuations, along patterns that change across size and book-to-market stocks. Time-varying betas display superior predictive accuracy for returns against constant and rolling-window OLS estimates. As to the relationship of betas with business-cycle variables, value stocks’ betas move pro-cyclically, unlike those of growth stocks. Investment growth, rather than consumption, predicts the betas of value and small-firm portfolios.

This study focuses on the estimation and predictive performance of several estimators for the dynamic and autoregressive spatial lag panel data model with spatially correlated disturbances. In the spirit of Arellano and Bond (1991) and Mutl (2006), a dynamic spatial generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator is proposed based on Kapoor, Kelejian and Prucha (2007) for the spatial autoregressive (SAR) error model. The main idea is to mix non-spatial and spatial instruments to obtain consistent estimates of the parameters. Then, a linear predictor of this spatial dynamic model is derived. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we compare the performance of the GMM spatial estimator to that of spatial and non-spatial estimators and illustrate our approach with an application to new economic geography.

In this article, we investigate the validity of the univariate autoregressive sieve bootstrap applied to time series panels characterized by general forms of cross-sectional dependence, including but not restricted to cointegration. Using the final equations approach we show that while it is possible to write such a panel as a collection of infinite order autoregressive equations, the innovations of these equations are not vector white noise. This causes the univariate autoregressive sieve bootstrap to be invalid in such panels. We illustrate this result with a small numerical example using a simple DGP for which the sieve bootstrap is invalid, and show that the extent of the invalidity depends on the value of specific parameters. We also show that Monte Carlo simulations in small samples can be misleading about the validity of the univariate autoregressive sieve bootstrap. The results in this article serve as a warning about the practical use of the autoregressive sieve bootstrap in panels where cross-sectional dependence of general form may be present.

In this article, we derive the local asymptotic power function of the unit root test proposed by Breitung [Journal of Econometrics (2002) Vol. 108, pp. 343–363]. Breitung's test is a non-parametric test and is free of nuisance parameters. We compare the local power curve of the Breitungs’ test with that of the Dickey–Fuller test. This comparison is in fact a quantification of the loss of power that one has to accept when applying a non-parametric test.

Lanne and Saikkonen [Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics (2011a) Vol. 73, pp. 581–592], show that the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator is inconsistent, when the instruments are lags of variables that admit a non-causal autoregressive representation. This article argues that this inconsistency depends on distributional assumptions, that do not always hold. In particular under rational expectations, the GMM estimator is found to be consistent. This result is derived in a linear context and illustrated by simulation of a nonlinear asset pricing model.

We consider unit root testing allowing for a break in trend when partial information is available regarding the location of the break date. This takes the form of knowledge of a relatively narrow window of data within which the break takes place, should it occur at all. For such circumstances, we suggest employing a union of rejections strategy, which combines a unit root test that allows for a trend break somewhere within the window with a unit root test that makes no allowance for a trend break. Asymptotic and finite sample evidence shows that our suggested strategy works well, provided that, when a break does occur, the partial information is correct. An empirical application to UK interest rate data containing the 1973 ‘oil shock’ is also considered.

We comprehensively analyse the long-run effect of foreign aid (ODA) on key macroeconomic variables in 36 sub-Saharan African countries from the mid-1960s to 2007, using a well-specified cointegrated VAR model as statistical benchmark. Results provide broad support for a positive long-run impact of ODA flows on the macroeconomy. In contrast, we find little evidence supporting the thesis that aid has been harmful. From a methodological point of view we highlight the importance of transparency in reporting results, especially when the hypothesis being tested differs from theoretical expectations, and we identify reasons for econometrically inadequate results in the literature.

We consider the role of imperfect competition in explaining the relative price of non-traded to traded goods within the Balassa–Samuelson framework. Under imperfect competition in these two sectors, relative prices depend on both productivity and mark-up differentials. We test this hypothesis using a panel of sectors for 12 OECD countries. The empirical evidence suggests that relative price movements are well explained by productivity and mark-up differentials.

This article combines a Structural Vector Autoregression with a no-arbitrage approach to build a multifactor Affine Term Structure Model (ATSM). The resulting No-Arbitrage Structural Vector Autoregressive (NASVAR) model implies that expected excess returns are driven by structural macroeconomic shocks. This is in contrast with a standard ATSM, in which agents are concerned with non-structural risks. As a simple application, we study the effects of supply, demand and monetary policy shocks on the UK yield curve. We show that all structural shocks affect the slope of the yield curve, with demand and supply shocks accounting for a large part of the time variation in bond yields.

This article investigates the impact of institutions on bank efficiency and technology, using a stochastic frontier analysis of a data set of 7,959 banks across 136 countries over 10 years. The results confirm the importance of well-developed institutions for the efficient operation of commercial banks. Furthermore, the insights reveal the impact of institutional reforms in improving bank efficiency. The results are robust to adjustments in country-specific effects, achieved by including country dummies, as well as across different risk profiles. Moreover, they provide empirical evidence in support of the public view of the banking sector.

Economists have long agreed that the local availability of a more qualified workforce generates significant spillovers. This study suggests that these externalities may arise because plants by having access to a more qualified workforce at a regional level, can benefit more from R&D spillovers than those located in areas with less qualified workforce. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of British establishments drawn from the Annual Business Inquiry over the period 1997–2002. The main results are consistent with our expectations that the regional differences in the industry-level educational attainment of the workforce available to a plant will condition its capability of absorbing R&D spillovers.

Models for the 12-month-ahead US rate of inflation, measured by the chain-weighted consumer expenditure deflator, are estimated for 1974–98 and subsequent pseudo out-of-sample forecasting performance is examined. Alternative forecasting approaches for different information sets are compared with benchmark univariate autoregressive models, and substantial out-performance is demonstrated including against Stock and Watson's unobserved components-stochastic volatility model. Three key ingredients to the out-performance are: including equilibrium correction component terms in relative prices; introducing nonlinearities to proxy state-dependence in the inflation process and replacing the information criterion, commonly used in VARs to select lag length, with a ‘parsimonious longer lags’ parameterization. Forecast pooling or averaging also improves forecast performance.

One of the most cited studies within the field of binary choice models is that of Klein and Spady (1993), in which the authors propose a semiparametric estimator for use when the distribution of the error term is unknown. However, although theoretically appealing, the estimator has been found to be difficult to implement, and therefore not very attractive from an applied point of view. The current study offers an indirect inference-based solution to this problem. The new estimator is not only simple with good small-sample properties, but also consistent and asymptotically normal.

This study proposes to investigate the threshold effects in the productivity of infrastructure investment in developing countries. It concludes to their presence in the relationship between output and private and public inputs as well as network effects in the productivity of infrastructure. When the available stock of infrastructure is low, investment has the same productivity as non-infrastructure investment. On the contrary, when a minimum network is available, the marginal productivity of infrastructure investment is greater than the productivity of other investments. Finally, when the main network is achieved, its marginal productivity becomes similar to the productivity of other investment.

Ordinary fan charts consist of symmetric marginal forecast intervals, and do not take into consideration the concrete loss function of the user of the forecast. The note shows how to build fan charts that have exact joint coverage even under asymmetric loss, and maintain at the same time the intuition conveyed by ordinary fan charts. The proposed method is computationally simple, and easily implemented with any loss function. The differences between the information conveyed by fan charts with or without asymmetries, and with or without exact joint coverage, are illustrated with a Bayesian forecast exercise of US GDP growth rates.

We exploit information on the geographic, product and trader characteristics of China's 1997–2009 exports to examine how the evolving city-industry presence of multinational firms influenced the quality, frequency and survival of new export transactions by private Chinese firms. Our results show that own-industry multinational firm contact was associated with more frequent, higher-valued, and longer-lasting new trade transactions. These effects appear to arise from beneficial multinational spillovers, rather than selection effects due to increased multinational competition, as increases in own-industry or other multinational presence were also associated with an increase in the number of trade transactions introduced by private Chinese firms.

In line with the wider macro productivity literature existing studies of agricultural production largely neglect technology heterogeneity, variable time-series properties and the potential for heterogeneous but correlated total factor productivity (TFP) across countries. Our empirical approach accommodates these difficulties and seeks to model the nature of the cross-section dependence in a sample of 128 countries (1961–2002). Our results suggest that agro-climatic environment drives similarity in TFP evolution across countries with heterogeneous production technology. This provides a possible explanation for the failure of technology transfer from advanced countries of the temperate ‘North’ to arid and/or equatorial developing countries of the ‘South’.

In this article, we consider extensions of smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) models to situations where the threshold is a function of variables that affect the separation of regimes of the time series under consideration. Our specification is motivated by the observation that unusually high/low values for an economic variable may sometimes be best thought of in relative terms. State-dependent contemporaneous-threshold STAR and logistic STAR models are introduced and discussed. These models are also used to investigate the dynamics of US short-term interest rates, where the threshold is allowed to be a function of past output growth and inflation.

A thorny problem in identifying the determinants of reservation wages and particularly the role of continued joblessness in their evolution is the simultaneity issue. We deploy a control function approach to the problem that involves conditioning elapsed duration on completed unemployment duration in the reservation wage equation. Our analysis confirms that the use of elapsed duration alone compounds two separate and opposing influences. Only with the inclusion of completed duration is the negative effect of continued joblessness on reservation wages apparent.

This article tests for the existence of the political replacement effect, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson: [American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, pp. 115–131]. They argue that the implementation of market-oriented reform is crucially driven by the political calculus of incumbent governments: they implement economic policy change if such a choice is not expected to reduce their chances to retain power. This implies a non-monotonic relationship between the level of political competition and the extent of economic reform. We test this hypothesis using data for 102 countries over the period 1980 to 2005. Our results strongly support the theory.

This article calculates some facts for the ‘knowledge economy’. Using new data, first we document UK intangible investment and find that (i) this is greater than tangible investment by £37bn in 2008; (ii) R&D is 11% of total intangible investment, software 15%, and training and organizational capital 22% each; (iii) the most intangible-intensive industries are manufacturing and financial services. Next, we measure the contribution of intangible capital to growth for 2000–08. We find that intangible capital accounts for 23% of labour productivity growth and treating intangibles as investment lowers total factor productivity growth in the 2000s by 24% (R&D lowers it by 3%).

Better international logistics raise a developing country's exports, but the magnitude of the effect depends on the country's size. We apply a gravity model that accounts for firm heterogeneity and multilateral resistance to an international logistics index. A one standard deviation improvement in logistics is equivalent to a 14% reduction in distance. An average-sized developing country would raise exports by approximately 36%. Most of the countries are much smaller than average, so the typical effect is 8%. This difference is chiefly due to the dampening effect of multilateral resistance, which is more important for small countries.

Structural vector-autoregressive models are potentially very useful tools for guiding both macro- and microeconomic policy. In this study, we present a recently developed method for estimating such models, which uses non-normality to recover the causal structure underlying the observations. We show how the method can be applied to both microeconomic data (to study the processes of firm growth and firm performance) and macroeconomic data (to analyse the effects of monetary policy).

This article exploits a natural experiment provided by the 1999 introduction of the UK National Minimum Wage (NMW) to test for efficiency wage considerations in a low-wage sector, the UK residential care homes industry. The empirical results provide support to the wage-supervision trade-off prediction of the shirking model and suggest that the NMW may have operated as an efficiency wage in the care homes sector, leading to a reduction in supervision costs. These findings can explain earlier evidence suggesting that although the NMW introduction increased wages dramatically in the care homes sector, it generated only moderate negative employment effects.

The monetary policy reaction function of the Bank of England is estimated by the standard GMM approach and the ex ante forecast method developed by Goodhart (2005), with particular attention to the horizons for inflation and output at which each approach gives the best fit. The horizons for the ex ante approach are much closer to what is implied by the Bank's view of the transmission mechanism, while the GMM approach produces an implausibly slow adjustment of the interest rate, and suffers from a weak instruments problem. These findings suggest a strong preference for the ex ante approach.

What does a monetary policy shock do? We answer this question by estimating a new-Keynesian monetary policy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for a number of economies with a variety of empirical proxies of the business cycle. The effects of two different policy shocks, an unexpected interest rate hike conditional on a constant inflation target and an unpredicted drift in the inflation target, are scrutinized. Filter-specific Bayesian impulse responses are contrasted with those obtained by combining multiple business cycle indicators. Our results document the substantial uncertainty surrounding the estimated effects of these two policy shocks across a number of countries.

A standard assumption in the empirical literature is that exchange rate pass-through is both linear and symmetric. This study tests these assumptions for export and import prices in the G7 economies. It focuses on non-linearities in the reaction of profit margins to exchange rate movements, which may arise from the presence of price rigidities and switching costs. Nonlinearities are characterized by augmenting a standard linear model with polynomial functions of the exchange rate and with interactive dummy variables. The results suggest that nonlinearities and especially asymmetries cannot be ignored, although their magnitude varies noticeably across countries.

We analyze the impact of profit sharing on training intensity. Profit sharing may affect training because it is a credible commitment by firms to reward firm-specific skills, may reduce turnover and leads to peer group pressure to participate in training courses. To eliminate possible selectivity effects, we combine matching with difference-in-differences. We identify the proportion of employees participating in profits and differentiate profit sharing according to the percentage of the workers covered. Using German establishment data we find that profit sharing only has a significant effect on training intensity if the majority of the workforce benefits from it.

This study estimates the return to education in Britain using two instrumental variable (IV) estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking, the other uses the raising of the school leaving age; both affect a sizeable proportion of the sample. Early smoking is found to be a strong and valid IV and unlike previous IV strategies uses variations in education at numerous points across the distributions of (i) education, and (ii) ability. Thus whilst still a ‘local average treatment effect’ the estimate is closer to the average effect of additional education, akin to least squares but corrected for endogeneity.

The introduction of the German parental leave benefit (Elterngeld) applied to all children born on 1 January, 2007 or later. The Elterngeld considerably changed the amount of transfers to families during the first two years postpartum. We show that the incentives created by using a cut-off date led more than 1,000 parents to postpone the delivery of their children from December 2006 to January 2007. Concerning potential adverse impacts on health outcomes of children we find a slight increase in average birth weight and the rate of children with high birth weight (>4,000 g).

This paper proposes two new panel unit root tests based on Zaykin et al. (2002)’s truncated product method. The first one assumes constant correlation between P-values and the second one uses sieve bootstrap to allow for general forms of cross-section dependence in the panel units. Monte Carlo simulation shows that both tests have reasonably good size and are powerful in cases of some very large P-values. The proposed tests are applied to a panel of real GDP and inflation density forecasts, resulting in evidence that professional forecasters may not update their forecast precision in an optimal Bayesian way.

To quantify qualitative survey data, the Carlson–Parkin method assumes normality, a time-invariant symmetric indifference interval, and long-run unbiased expectations. These assumptions are unnecessary for interval-coded data. In April 2004, the Monthly Consumer Confidence Survey in Japan started to ask households about their price expectations a year ahead in seven categories with partially known boundaries. Thus one can identify up to six parameters including an indifference interval each month. This paper compares normal, skew normal (SN), skew exponential power (SEP), and skew t (St) distributions, and finds that an St distribution fits the data well. The results help us to better understand the dynamics of heterogeneous expectations.

We evaluate the magnitude of the disparities in the demand for redistribution across European countries and American states during the 2000s. Modelling the demand for redistribution in a multilevel framework, we identify the determinants that contribute the most in predicting support for redistribution. We observe that individual characteristics and contextual variables are associated with demand for redistribution in the same way in Europe and in the US, whereas others exert different influences on the probability of supporting redistribution. We find important differences from some well-established evidence obtained from data collected for the 1980s and the 1990s.

Various studies interpret the positive correlation between income risk and wealth as evidence of significant precautionary savings. However, these high estimates emerge from pooling non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, without controlling for heterogeneity. This article provides evidence for Germany based on representative panel data that includes private wealth balance sheets. Entrepreneurs, who face high income risk, hold more wealth than employees, but this tendency is not because of precautionary motives. Instead, they appear to save more for their old age, because they are usually not covered by statutory pension insurance. The analysis accounts for endogeneity in entrepreneurial choice and heterogeneous risk attitudes.

Using Italian data, we estimate an option value model to quantify the effect of financial incentives on retirement choices. As far as we know, this is the first empirical study to estimate the conditional multiple-years model put forward by Stock and Wise (1990). This implies that we account for dynamic self-selection bias. We also present an extended version of this model in which the marginal value of leisure is random. For the female sample, the model is able to predict almost perfectly the age-specific hazard rates. For the male sample, we obtain a good fit. Dynamic self-selection results in a downward bias in the estimate of the marginal utility of leisure. We perform a simulation study to gauge the effects of a dramatic pension reform. Underestimation of the value of leisure translates into sizeable over-prediction of the impact of reform. Due to lack of data, results for males should be interpreted with caution since we are not able to fully correct for dynamic self-selection bias.

This study uses a macro-finance model to examine the ability of the gilt market to predict fluctuations in macroeconomic volatility. The econometric model is a development of the standard ‘square root’ volatility model, but unlike the conventional term structure specification it allows for separate volatility and inflation trends. It finds that although volatility and inflation trends move independently in the short run, they are cointegrated. Bond yields provide useful information about macroeconomic volatility, but a better indicator can be developed by combining this with macroeconomic information.

We study a key part of National Health Service (NHS) policy to ensure high-quality health care: failure to supply such care cost the NHS £787m in clinical negligence payouts during 2009–10. The NHS uses risk management standards to incentivize care, and we examine their effects on methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Using a specially assembled data set, our GMM results suggest that improvements in the risk management standards attained by some hospitals are correlated with reductions in their MRSA infection rates. Moreover, the exogeneity of this relationship cannot be rejected for higher risk management levels, suggesting attainment of higher standards was instrumental in reducing infection rates.

Exploiting unique panel data that include direct measurements of resource allocation within households, we investigated the impact of childbirth on intrahousehold allocation for married Japanese couples. Based on a collective model of the household, we developed reduced-form and structural-form estimation equations that allow us to focus on private goods to track the changes in intrahousehold resource allocation. We found one additional child is associated with a reduction in the wife's private expenditure share by at least two percentage points. This may be because she substitutes more say in decisions on the children for her own private expenditure share.

This paper examines migrants’ choice of destination conditional on migration. The study uses data from two rounds of Nepal Living Standard Surveys and a Population Census and examine how the choice of a migration destination is influenced by various covariates, including income differentials across possible destinations. We find that migrants move primarily to nearby, high population density areas where many people share their language and ethnic background. Better access to amenities is significant as well. Differentials in average income across destination districts are significant in univariate comparisons but not once we control for other covariates. Differentials in consumption expenditures are statistically significant but smaller in magnitude than other determinants. It is differentials in absolute, not relative, consumption between destination districts that are correlated with the destination of work migrants. Except for the latter, results are robust to different specifications and datasets.

Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the retirement earnings test. We find almost no impact on the extensive margin, but a positive effect on the intensive margin. This positive effect is uneven over the earnings distribution, and concentrated on workers around the threshold, increasing with exposure to the reform and leading to a decrease in earnings inequality. Individuals who remain active until retirement age respond more to the reform. Conditional on prereform earnings, we find little evidence that individual characteristics such as working histories influence the responsiveness to the reform.

It is widely believed that investing in education could be an effective strategy to promote higher standards of living and equity. We empirically assess this claim by estimating returns to education across the whole earnings distribution in urban China and find supporting evidence. In particular, we find that returns to education are more pronounced for individuals in the lower tail of the distribution than for those in the upper tail and that returns to education are uniformly larger for women than men. We also find that returns to education increased over time across the whole earnings distribution.

Let S be the number of components in a finite discrete mixing distribution. We prove that the number of waves of panel being greater than or equal to 2S is a sufficient condition for global identification of a dynamic binary choice model in which all the parameters are heterogeneous. This model results in a mixture of S binary first-order Markov Chains.

This paper proposes a common and tractable framework for analyzing fixed and random effects models, in particular constant-slope variable-intercept designs. It is shown that, regardless of whether effects (i) are treated as parameters or as an error term, (ii) are estimated in different stages of a hierarchical model, or whether (iii) correlation between effects and regressors is allowed, when the same prior information on idiosyncratic parameters is introduced into all estimation methods, the resulting common slope estimator is also the same across methods. These results are illustrated using the Grünfeld investment data with different prior distributions. Random effects estimates are shown to be more efficient than fixed effects estimates. This efficiency gain, however, comes at the cost of neglecting information obtained in the computation of the prior unknown variance of idiosyncratic parameters.