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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Causal Change Detection In Possibly Integrated Systems: Revisiting The Money-Income Relationship, Shuping Shi, Stan Hurn, Peter C. B. Phillips Dec 2020

Causal Change Detection In Possibly Integrated Systems: Revisiting The Money-Income Relationship, Shuping Shi, Stan Hurn, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper re-examines changes in the causal link between money and income in the United States over the past half century (1959-2014). Three methods for the data-driven discovery of change points in causal relationships are proposed, all of which can be implemented without prior detrending of the data. These methods are a forward recursive algorithm, a rolling window algorithm, and a recursive evolving algorithm all of which utilize subsample tests of Granger causality within a lagaugmented vector autoregressive framework. The limit distributions for these subsample Wald tests are provided. Bootstrap methods are developed to control family-wise size in the implementation …


Decomposing Duration Dependence: Skill Depreciation Vs. Statistical Discrimination, Ismail Baydur, Jianhuan Xu Dec 2020

Decomposing Duration Dependence: Skill Depreciation Vs. Statistical Discrimination, Ismail Baydur, Jianhuan Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a random matching model with unobserved worker heterogeneity and learning about worker types from unemployment duration. The model features negative duration dependence that stems from unobserved heterogeneity as well as statistical discrimination and skill depreciation. We estimate our model using micro-level data from Current Population Survey (CPS) and we decompose the contribution of each channel to job finding rates by duration. We find that shutting down statistical discrimination substantially increases the job finding rates of the long-term unemployed while skill depreciation mainly affects the medium-term unemployed.


Natural Disasters And Domestic Violence: A Study Of The 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Arpita Khanna, Tomoki Fujii Dec 2020

Natural Disasters And Domestic Violence: A Study Of The 2015 Nepal Earthquake, Arpita Khanna, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study explores the link between exposure to an earthquake and the incidence of intimate partner violence using two rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys data in Nepal. Using a differences-in-differences estimation, we find that exposure to the earthquake lead to a statistically and economically significant increase in the incidence of intimate partner violence in urban areas, which is attributable to the increase in stress felt by the victims. We argue that the heterogeneity of the impact between the urban and rural areas would be partly due to the differences in the reconstruction processes and assistance provided.


Firm Productivity And The Variety Of Inputs And Outputs: Evidence From Chinese Trade Data, Ken Onishi, Jianhuan Xu, Guang Yang Dec 2020

Firm Productivity And The Variety Of Inputs And Outputs: Evidence From Chinese Trade Data, Ken Onishi, Jianhuan Xu, Guang Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies how the trade liberalization in China changes the firm productivity. We develop a framework to estimate revenue productivity (TFPR) and real productivity (TFPQ) with multi-product firms. We find that the aggregate TFPR increases 30\% from 2002-2007 and TFPQ increases 22\%, suggesting that the observed TFPR increase is mainly driven by real productivity change rather than the markup change. We further decompose the change of productivity into three channels: (1) access to foreign inputs; (2) technology upgrade; (3) resource re-allocation within the firm. We find the most significant channel is the last one, which explains half of the …


Urbanization Policy And Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis Of China's Differential Hukou Reforms, Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma Dec 2020

Urbanization Policy And Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis Of China's Differential Hukou Reforms, Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma

Research Collection School Of Economics

The household registration system (hukou system) in China has hampered rural-urban migration by posing large migration friction. The system has been gradually relaxed in the past few decades, but the reforms have been differential in city size and by the coastal-inland divide. We find a striking contrast in the migration patterns between years 2005 and 2015; rural people tended to move more to the coastal urban region in 2005, but more to the inland urban region in 2015. We calibrate a spatial quantitative model to the world economy in both years with China being divided into the rural, coastal urban, …


Asymptotic Properties Of Least Squares Estimator In Local To Unity Processes With Fractional Gaussian Noises, Xiaohu Wang, Weilin Xiao, Jun Yu Dec 2020

Asymptotic Properties Of Least Squares Estimator In Local To Unity Processes With Fractional Gaussian Noises, Xiaohu Wang, Weilin Xiao, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper derives asymptotic properties of the least squares estimator of the autoregressive parameter in local to unity processes with errors being fractional Gaussian noises with the Hurst parameter H. It is shown that the estimator is consistent when H ∈ (0, 1). Moreover, the rate of convergence is n when H ∈ [0.5, 1). The rate of convergence is n2H when H ∈ (0, 0.5). Furthermore, the limit distribution of the centered least squares estimator depends on H. When H = 0.5, the limit distribution is the same as that obtained in Phillips (1987a) for the local to …


Quasi-Bayesian Inference For Production Frontiers, Xiaobin Liu, Thomas Tao Yang, Yichong Zhang Dec 2020

Quasi-Bayesian Inference For Production Frontiers, Xiaobin Liu, Thomas Tao Yang, Yichong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a quasi-Bayesian method to conduct inference for the production frontier. This approach combines multiple first-stage extreme quantile estimates by the quasi-Bayesian method to produce the point estimate and confidence interval for the production frontier. We show the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator and the validity of the inference procedure. The finite sample performance of our method is illustrated through simulations and an empirical application.


Density Of Demand And The Consumer Benefit From Uber, Matthew H. Shapiro Dec 2020

Density Of Demand And The Consumer Benefit From Uber, Matthew H. Shapiro

Research Collection School Of Economics

Uber has attracted the attention of economists and policy makers for its innovations in the taxicab market and its potential for significant consumer welfare gains. The size of this gain depends in part on whether these innovations permit transactions previously costly or infeasible. Using New York City — the largest taxi market in the country — as its context, this paper estimates the level of any technological advantage Uber has over hail taxis in matching to consumers. I combine publicly available transportation data with data scraped from Uber and traffic cameras to estimate a model of the demand for transportation …


Point Optimal Testing With Roots That Are Functionally Local To Unity, Anna Bykhovskaya, Peter C. B. Phillips Dec 2020

Point Optimal Testing With Roots That Are Functionally Local To Unity, Anna Bykhovskaya, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Limit theory for regressions involving local to unit roots (LURs) is now used extensively in time series econometric work, establishing power properties for unit root and cointegration tests, assisting the construction of uniform confidence intervals for autoregressive coefficients, and enabling the development of methods robust to departures from unit roots. The present paper shows how to generalize LUR asymptotics to cases where the localized departure from unity is a time varying function rather than a constant. Such a functional local unit root (FLUR) model has much greater generality and encompasses many cases of additional interest that appear in practical work, …


The Convergence Of Water, Electricity And Gas Industries: Implications For Ppp Design And Regulation, Sock Yong Phang Dec 2020

The Convergence Of Water, Electricity And Gas Industries: Implications For Ppp Design And Regulation, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In several countries that have privatised their utilities, power and water are separate industries regulated by sector-specific regulators. In a parallel development, desalination has become an important source of water supply in countries where there is a shortage of cheap and clean freshwater. Where the energy source is gas, the use of gas-fired power plants to supply electricity for desalination links the water, electricity and gas industries. We use the case of the financial collapse of an integrated water and power project to illustrate the problems that can arise from such convergence, and to draw lessons for firms, Public-Private Partnerships …


On Strategy-Proofness And The Salience Of Single-Peakedness In A Private Goods Economy, Shurojit Chatterji, Masso Jordi, Serizawa Shigehiro Dec 2020

On Strategy-Proofness And The Salience Of Single-Peakedness In A Private Goods Economy, Shurojit Chatterji, Masso Jordi, Serizawa Shigehiro

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider strategy-proof rules operating on a rich domain of preference profiles in a set up where multiple private goods have to be assigned to a set of agents with entitlements where preferences display satiation. We show that if the rule is in addition "desirable", in that it is tops-only, continuous, same-sided and individually rational with respect to the entitlements, then the preferences in the domain have to satisfy a variant of single-peakedness (referred to as smilattice single-peakedness). We also provide a converse of this main finding. It turns our that this domain coincides with the one already identified in …


Testing For Structural Changes In Factor Models Via A Nonparametric Regression, Liangjun Su, Xia Wang Dec 2020

Testing For Structural Changes In Factor Models Via A Nonparametric Regression, Liangjun Su, Xia Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a model-free test for structural changes in factor models. The basic idea is to regress the data on commonly estimated factors by local smoothing and compare the fitted values of time-varying factor loadings with those of time-invariant factor loadings estimated via principal component analysis. By construction, the test is designed to be powerful against both smooth structural changes and sudden structural breaks with a possibly unknown number of breaks and unknown break dates in the factor loadings. No restrictions on the form of alternatives or trimming of boundary regions near the beginning or end of the sample period …


Diagnostic Tests For Homoskedasticity In Spatial Cross-Sectional Or Panel Models, Badi K. Baltagi, Alain Pirotte, Zhenlin Yang Dec 2020

Diagnostic Tests For Homoskedasticity In Spatial Cross-Sectional Or Panel Models, Badi K. Baltagi, Alain Pirotte, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose an Adjusted Quasi-Score (AQS) method for constructing tests for homoskedasticity in spatial econometric models. We first obtain an AQS function by adjusting the score-type function from the given model to achieve unbiasedness, and then develop an Outer-Product-of-Martingale-Difference (OPMD) estimate of its variance. In standard problems where a genuine (quasi) score vector is available, the AQS-OPMD method leads to finite sample improved tests over the usual methods. More importantly in non-standard problems where a genuine (quasi) score is not available and the usual methods fail, the proposed AQS-OPMD method provides feasible solutions. The AQS tests are formally derived and …


Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel©, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu Nov 2020

Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel©, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Housing affordability for elderly homeowners involves an entirely different set of issues as compared to housing affordability for first-time homeowners. To afford to ‘age-in-place’ may require homeowners to access channels that enable them to withdraw their housing equity to finance consumption in retirement. We utilize data from the Singapore Life Panel© survey to empirically investigate the impact of housing equity on the consumption of elderly households. Based on panel analysis, we find housing equity value has no significant impact on non-durable consumption for elderly people. The conclusion holds for a battery of robustness checks. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses based on subsamples …


Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Time Series, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao Nov 2020

Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Time Series, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides the first result for the uniform inference based on nonparametric series estimators in a general time-series setting. We develop a strong approximation theory for sample averages of mixingales with dimensions growing with the sample size. We use this result to justify the asymptotic validity of a uniform confidence band for series estimators and show that it can also be used to conduct nonparametric specification test for conditional moment restrictions. New results on the validity of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) estimators with increasing dimension are established for making feasible inference. An empirical application on the unemployment volatility …


Persistent And Rough Volatility, Xiaobin Liu, Shuping Shi, Jun Yu Nov 2020

Persistent And Rough Volatility, Xiaobin Liu, Shuping Shi, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper contributes to an ongoing debate on volatility dynamics. We introduce a discrete-time fractional stochastic volatility (FSV) model based on the fractional Gaussian noise. The new model has the same limit as the fractional integrated stochastic volatility (FISV) model under the in-fill asymptotic scheme. We study the theoretical properties of both models and introduce a memory signature plot for a model-free initial assessment. A simulated maximum likelihood (SML) method, which maximizes the time-domain log-likelihoods obtained by the importance sampling technique, is employed to estimate the model parameters. Simulation studies suggest that the SML method can accurately estimate both models. …


Robust Virtual Implementation With Almost Complete Information, Takashi Kunimoto Nov 2020

Robust Virtual Implementation With Almost Complete Information, Takashi Kunimoto

Research Collection School Of Economics

Artemov, Kunimoto, and Serrano (2013a,b, henceforth, AKS) study a mechanism design problem where arbitrary restrictions are placed on the set of first-order beliefs of agents. Calling these restrictions Δ, they adopt Δ-rationalizability (Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2003) and show that Δ-incentive compatibility and Δ-measurability are necessary and sufficient conditions for robust virtual implementation, which implies that virtual implementation is possible uniformly over all type spaces consistent with Δ-restrictions. By appropriately defining Δ in order to restrict attention to complete information environments and thereafter explicitly modelling the assumption of complete information in the language of type spaces, I re-establish the permissive implementation …


The Potential Impacts Of Covid-19 On The Global Value Chains: Gvc Positioning And Linkages, Gerald Foong, Pao-Li Chang Nov 2020

The Potential Impacts Of Covid-19 On The Global Value Chains: Gvc Positioning And Linkages, Gerald Foong, Pao-Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Apart from the public health crisis entailed by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it has also propagated a pandemic-induced economic shock globally. One transmission channel is via the inter-country linkages arising from the trade in intermediate inputs, which is a pertinent characteristic of global value chains (GVCs), and resulting in a "supply-chain contagion" as termed by Baldwin and Tomiura (2020). In this paper, we propose measures of bilteral downstreamness and upstreamness, the extent of a country's GVC participation, and the position of a country in GVCs by leveraging upon the gross export decomposition framework as laid out by Borin …


A Ricardian Rationale For The Wto Rules On R&D Subsidies, Yumi Koh, Gea M. Lee Nov 2020

A Ricardian Rationale For The Wto Rules On R&D Subsidies, Yumi Koh, Gea M. Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

The WTO subsidy rules use two key criteria, specificity and adverse effects, to regulate R&D subsidies. Using the model of Dornbusch et al. (1977), we offer a Ricardian rationale for the regulatory criteria.


The Revealed Preference Theory Of Stable Matchings With One-Sided Preferences, Gaoji Hu, Jiangtao Li, Rui Tang Nov 2020

The Revealed Preference Theory Of Stable Matchings With One-Sided Preferences, Gaoji Hu, Jiangtao Li, Rui Tang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the testable implications of the theory of stable matchings in two-sided matching markets with one-sided preferences. Our main result connects the revealed preference analysis to the well-known lattice structure of the set of stable matchings, and tests the rationalizability of a data set by analyzing the joins and meets of matchings.


Mandarins Make Markets: Leadership Rotations And Inter-Provincial Trade In China, Junyan Jiang, Yuan Mei Nov 2020

Mandarins Make Markets: Leadership Rotations And Inter-Provincial Trade In China, Junyan Jiang, Yuan Mei

Research Collection School Of Economics

The careers of many public officials span multiple localities, yet the economic effects of their inter-regional movements are not well understood. This paper focuses on the rotation of provincial leaders in China and studies its impact on regional economic integration. Estimation results using the gravity framework indicate that when a provincial leader is appointed as the party secretary of a new province, the trade volume from the new province to the old province increases, but not vice versa. Additional analyses using two novel datasets that capture the intensity of inter-provincial socioeconomic activities in China corroborate this finding. We then construct …


Does Early Access To Pension Wealth Improve Health?, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh Oct 2020

Does Early Access To Pension Wealth Improve Health?, Seonghoon Kim, Kanghyock Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

We examine the health impacts of early access to public pension wealth by exploiting a unique policy in Singapore allowing individuals to withdraw a proportion of their pension savings after their 55th birthday. For the identification, we employ a regression discontinuity design by comparing individuals before and after their 55th birthday. To address anticipated and lagged health impacts, we adopt the donut regression discontinuity approach. Using nationally representative monthly panel data, we find that early access to pension wealth improves self‐reported overall health.


Forecasting Large Covariance Matrix With High-Frequency Data: A Factor Approach For The Correlation Matrix, Yingjie Dong, Yiu Kuen Tse Oct 2020

Forecasting Large Covariance Matrix With High-Frequency Data: A Factor Approach For The Correlation Matrix, Yingjie Dong, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

We apply the factor approach to the correlation matrix to forecast large covariance matrix of asset returns using high-frequency data, using the principal component method to model the underlying latent factors of the correlation matrix. The realized variances are separately forecasted using the Heterogeneous Autoregressive model. The forecasted variances and correlations are then combined to forecast large covariance matrix. Our proposed method is found to perform better in reporting smaller forecast errors than some selected competitors. Empirical application to a portfolio of 100 NYSE and NASDAQ stocks shows that our method provides lower out-of-sample realized variance in selecting global minimum …


Between Lives And Economy: Optimal Covid-19 Containment Policy In Open Economies, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hsuan-Chih Luke Lin, Yang Han Oct 2020

Between Lives And Economy: Optimal Covid-19 Containment Policy In Open Economies, Wen-Tai Hsu, Hsuan-Chih Luke Lin, Yang Han

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies optimal containment policy for combating a pandemic in an open-economy context. It does so via quantitative analyses using a model that incorporates a standard epidemiological compartmental model in a multi-country, multi-sector Ricardian model of international trade with full-fledged input-output linkages. We devise a novel approach in computing optimal national policies in the long run, and contrast these policies with a baseline in which countries maintain their current policies until vaccine availability. The welfare gains under optimal policies are asymmetric as the gains for the set of countries which should tighten up the containment measures are much larger …


Unconditional Quantile Regression With High-Dimensional Data, Yuya Sasaki, Takuya Ura, Yichong Zhang Oct 2020

Unconditional Quantile Regression With High-Dimensional Data, Yuya Sasaki, Takuya Ura, Yichong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Credible counterfactual analysis requires high-dimensional controls. This paper considers estimation and inference for heterogeneous counterfactual effects with high-dimensional data. We propose a novel doubly robust score for double/debiased estimation and inference for the unconditional quantile regression (Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux, 2009) as a measure of heterogeneous counterfactual marginal effects. We propose a multiplier bootstrap inference for the Lasso double/debiased estimator, and develop asymptotic theories to guarantee that the bootstrap works. Simulation studies support our theories. Applying the proposed method to Job Corps survey data, we find that i) marginal effects of counterfactually extending the duration of the exposure to the …


Interim Rationalizable Implementation Of Functions, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran, Roberto Serrano Oct 2020

Interim Rationalizable Implementation Of Functions, Takashi Kunimoto, Rene Saran, Roberto Serrano

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper investigates rationalizable implementation of social choice functions (SCFs) in incomplete information environments. We identify weak interim rationalizable monotonicity (weak IRM) as a novel condition and show that weak IRM is a necessary and almost sufficient condition for rationalizable implementation. We show by means of an example that interim rationalizable monotonicity (IRM), found in the literature, is strictly stronger than weak IRM as its name suggests, and that IRM is not necessary for rationalizable implementation, as had been previously claimed. The same example also demonstrates that Bayesian monotonicity, the key condition for full Bayesian implementation, is not necessary for …


A Taxonomy Of Non-Dictatorial Domains, Shurojit Chatterji, Huaxia Zeng Oct 2020

A Taxonomy Of Non-Dictatorial Domains, Shurojit Chatterji, Huaxia Zeng

Research Collection School Of Economics

We provide an exhaustive classification of all preference domains that allow the design of unanimous social choice functions (henceforth, rules) that are non-dictatorial and strategy-proof. This taxonomy is based on a richness assumption and employs a simple property of two-voter rules called invariance. The preference domains that form the classification are semi-single-peaked domains (introduced by Chatterji et al. (2013)) and semi-hybrid domains (introduced here) which are two appropriate weakenings of the single-peaked domains, and which, more importantly, are shown to allow strategy-proof rules to depend on non-peak information of voters’ preferences. As a refinement of the classification, single-peaked domains and …


The Optimal Degree Of Reciprocity In Tariff Reduction, Pao-Li Chang Sep 2020

The Optimal Degree Of Reciprocity In Tariff Reduction, Pao-Li Chang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper characterizes the optimal reciprocal trade policy in the environment of Melitz (2003) with firm productivity heterogeneity. With all the conflicting effects of import tariffs on welfare considered, the optimal degree of reciprocity in multilateral tariff reduction is shown to be free trade.


Order On Types Based On Monotone Comparative Statics, Takashi Kunimoto, Takuro Yamashita Sep 2020

Order On Types Based On Monotone Comparative Statics, Takashi Kunimoto, Takuro Yamashita

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper introduces a novel concept of orders on types by which the so-called monotone comparative statics is valid in all supermodular games with incomplete information. We fully characterize this order in terms of what we call common optimism, providing a sense in which our order has a sharp epistemic interpretation. We say that type ti′ is higher than type ti in the order of the common optimism if ti′ is more optimistic about state than ti; ti′ is more optimistic that all players are more optimistic about state than ti; and so on, ad infinitum. First, we show that …


Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Time Series Using Stata, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Mengsi Gao Sep 2020

Uniform Nonparametric Inference For Time Series Using Stata, Jia Li, Zhipeng Liao, Mengsi Gao

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this article, we introduce a command, tssreg, that conducts nonparametric series estimation and uniform inference for time-series data, including the case with independent data as a special case. This command can be used to nonparametrically estimate the conditional expectation function and the uniform confidence band at a user-specified confidence level, based on an econometric theory that accommodates general time-series dependence. The uniform inference tool can also be used to perform nonparametric specification tests for conditional moment restrictions commonly seen in dynamic equilibrium models.