Econometrics Commons^™

Categorical Salience Theory, Mark Schneider, Cary Deck, Patrick Dejarnette

ESI Working Papers

Monetary lotteries are the overwhelmingly predominant tool for understanding decisions under risk. However, many real-world decisions concern multidimensional out- comes involving different goods. Recent studies have tested whether people treat multidimensional risky choices in the same manner as unidimensional monetary lotteries and found that choices over consumer goods are less risk-averse and more consistent with expected utility theory than choices over monetary lotteries. While these puzzling results cannot be explained by any standard model of decision making, we demonstrate that these findings are predicted by a salience-based model of category-dependent preferences that also explains the classic anomalies for choices under …

Corrigendum To "On Time-Varying Factor Models: Estimation And Testing" [J. Econometrics 198 (2017) 84-101], Liangjun Su, Xia Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We note that Su and Wang (2017, On Time-varying Factor Models: Estimation and Testing, Journal of Econometrics 198, 84-101) ignore the bias terms when estimating the time-varying factor models. In this note, we correct the theoretical results on the estimation of time-varying factor models. The asymptotic results for testing the correct specification of time invariant factor loadings are not affected.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- February 2020, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Local Powers Of Least-Squares-Based Test For Panel Fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process, Katsuto Tanaka, Weilin Xiao, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Based on the least squares estimator, this paper proposes a novel method to test the sign of the persistence parameter in a panel fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with a known Hurst parameter H. Depending on H ∈ (1/2, 1), H = 1/2, or H ∈ (0, 1/2), three test statistics are considered. In the null hypothesis the persistence parameter is zero. Based on a panel of continuous record of observations, the null asymptotic distributions are obtained when T is fixed and N is assumed to go to infinity, where T is the time span of the sample and N is the …

Harnessing The Power Of Social Incentives To Curb Shirking In Teams, Brice Corgnet, Brian C. Gunia, Roberto Hernán González

ESI Working Papers

We study several solutions to shirking in teams that trigger social incentives by reshaping the workplace social context. Using an experimental design, we manipulate social pressure at work by varying the type of workplace monitoring and the extent to which employees engage in social interaction. This design allows us to assess the effectiveness as well as the popularity of each solution. Despite similar effectiveness in boosting productivity across solutions, only organizational systems involving social interaction (via chat) were at least as popular as a baseline treatment. This suggests that any solution based on promoting social interaction is more likely to …

Adam Smith’S Theory Of Value: A Reappraisal Of Classical Price Discovery, Sabiou M. Inoua, Vernon L. Smith

ESI Working Papers

The relevance of Adam Smith for understanding human morality and sociality is recognized in the growing interest in his work on moral sentiments among scholars of various academic backgrounds. But, paradoxically, Adam Smith’s theory of economic value enjoys a less prominent stature today among economists, who, while they view him as the “father of modern economics”, considered him more as having had the right intuitions about a market economy than as having developed the right concepts and the technical tools for studying it. Yet the neoclassical tradition, which replaced the classical school around 1870, failed to provide a satisfactory theory …

Working Too Much For Too Little: Stochastic Rewards Cause Work Addiction, Brice Corgnet, Simon Gaechter, Roberto Hernán González

ESI Working Papers

People are generally assumed to shy away from activities generating stochastic rewards, thus re-quiring extra compensation for handling any additional risk. In contrast with this view, neurosci-ence research with animals has shown that stochastic rewards may act as a powerful motivator. Applying these ideas to the study of work addiction in humans, and using a new experimental paradigm, we demonstrate how stochastic rewards may lead people to continue working on a re-petitive and effortful task even after monetary compensation becomes saliently negligible. In line with our hypotheses, we show that persistence on the work task is especially pronounced when the …

Mapping Socioeconomic Indicators By Race And County In Arkansas, Mervin Jebaraj, David Sorto

Urban League of the State of Arkansas

The Urban League of the State of Arkansas seeks to lead efforts in advancing and obtaining equal opportunities for all citizens with a particular focus in the areas of health, education, jobs, and housing. In keeping with this mission, the Urban League of Arkansas partnered with the Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas to produce a report that provides data to identify key areas of need in the African American and Latinx communities in Arkansas and develop programs and policies to address them.

In this report, the …

Unconditional Quantile Regression Analysis Of Uk Inbound Tourist Expenditures, Abhijit Sharma, Richard Woodward, Stefano Grillini

Articles

Using International Passenger Survey (2017) data, this paper employs unconditional quantile regression (UQR) to analyse the determinants of tourist expenditure amongst inbound tourists to the United Kingdom. UQR allows us to estimate heterogeneous effects at any quantile of the distribution of the dependent variable. It overcomes the econometric limitations of ordinary least squares and quantile regression based estimates typically used to investigate tourism expenditures. However, our results reveal that the effects of our explanatory variables change across the distribution of tourist expenditure. This has important implications for those tasked with devising policies to enhance the UK’s tourist flows and expenditures.

Corruption, Government Effectiveness And Human Development In Sub-Saharan Africa, Sakiru O. Akinbode, Jayeola Olabisi, Remilekun R. Adegbite, Timothy A. Aderemi, Abimbola M. Alawode

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Aside economic factors causing low human development which have been extensively studied in literature, the implications of high level of corruption and weak governance prevalent in sub- Saharan African (SSA) countries have not been explored. The study assessed the effects of corruption, government effectiveness and their joint effect on human development in SSA. Data collected on thirty-seven (37) countries within the period of 2005 to 2018 were analyzed using system Generalized Method of Moment which was most suitable for the dataset. Results indicated that lagged human development index (P<0.01), government effectiveness (P<0.05), economic growth rate (P<0.1) and government health spending (P<0.1) had significant positive effect on human development while corruption and its interaction with government effectiveness did not. The results of Arrelano-Bond test of first order autocorrelation and second order autocorrelation of error term as well as the Sargan test and Hansen J test for validity of instrumental variables confirmed the validity of the model. The robustness of the estimation was established as the coefficient of the lagged dependent variable fell between the values in the fixed effect and pooled ordinary least square regression. The study recommended retraining and reorientation of government employees towards the mindset of effective service delivery and strong political will to achieve it, diversification of SSA economies alongside other growth stimulating policies such as reduced lending interest rate on loans meant for the real sector, improvement in the ease of doing business, improved funding of the health sector and proper monitoring of activities in the public service by concerned agencies to curb corruption where it is present.

The Desire For Luxury In Emerging Markets: An Interactional Perspective On Consumer Motivations In Tunisia, Pranjal Gupta,, Mouna Zaghdoudi

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

The motivations underlying the desire for luxury products and services have long been the subject of academic inquiry. An understanding of these motivations is useful for the luxury market industry to help managers formulate better marketing strategies. Further, such knowledge would also be useful to public policy makers to help them mitigate societal problems that may occur as a result of such consumption. Of particular interest is the growth of the luxury market in emerging economies. This study spotlights the luxury market in Tunisia. Previous work has demonstrated that age has a significant impact both on willingness to buy luxury …

Homeownership Rate And Other House Price Determinants Impacts On New House Prices In Colombia, Hector A. Botello-Peñaloza

Journal for the Advancement of Developing Economies

Homeownership remains a preferred form of tenancy in different parts of the world. The attractions of security, stability, investment potential and a sense of pride outweigh the fear of price instability. For this reason, the Colombian government has encouraged in recent years, various demand policies that have sought to promote the increase in the number of homeowners. However, these ideas could have a severe impact on prices in the real estate market. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the effect of homeownership rate on new house prices in an emerging country with low real estate ownership, credit restrictions and average …

Testing Alphas In Conditional Time-Varying Factor Models With High Dimensional Assets, Shujie Ma, Wei Lan, Liangjun Su, Chih-Ling Tsai

Research Collection School Of Economics

For conditional time-varying factor models with high dimensional assets, this article proposes a high dimensional alpha (HDA) test to assess whether there exist abnormal returns on securities (or portfolios) over the theoretical expected returns. To employ this test effectively, a constant coefficient test is also introduced. It examines the validity of constant alphas and factor loadings. Simulation studies and an empirical example are presented to illustrate the finite sample performance and the usefulness of the proposed tests. Using the HDA test, the empirical example demonstrates that the FF three-factor model (Fama and French, 1993) is better than CAPM (Sharpe, 1964) …

Strong Consistency Of Spectral Clustering For Stochastic Block Models, Liangjun Su, Wuyi Wang, Yichong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper we prove the strong consistency of several methods based on the spectral clustering techniques that are widely used to study the community detection problem in stochastic block models (SBMs). We show that under some weak conditions on the minimal degree, the number of communities, and the eigenvalues of the probability block matrix, the K-means algorithm applied to the eigenvectors of the graph Laplacian associated with its first few largest eigenvalues can classify all individuals into the true community uniformly correctly almost surely. Extensions to both regularized spectral clustering and degree-corrected SBMs are also considered. We illustrate the …

Model Selection For Explosive Models, Yubo Tao, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This chapter examines the limit properties of information criteria (such as AIC, BIC, and HQIC) for distinguishing between the unit-root (UR) model and the various kinds of explosive models. The explosive models include the local-to-unit-root model from the explosive side the mildly explosive (ME) model, and the regular explosive model. Initial conditions with different orders of magnitude are considered. Both the OLS estimator and the indirect inference estimator are studied. It is found that BIC and HQIC, but not AIC, consistently select the UR model when data come from the UR model. When data come from the local-to-unit-root model from …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- January 2020, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

An Experimental Comparison Of News Vending And Price Gouging, Zuzana Brokesova, Cary Deck, Jana Peliova

ESI Working Papers

The newsvendor problem is a workhorse model in operation management research. We introduce a related game that operates in the price dimension rather than the inventory dimension: the price gouging game. Using controlled laboratory experiments, we compare news vending and price gouging behavior. We replicate the standard pull-to-center effect for news vending and find that the equivalent pattern occurs with price gouging. Further, we find that the pull-to-center is asymmetric both for newsvendors and price gougers. More broadly, the experimental results reveal that choices are similar across the theoretically isomorphic games, suggesting that observed behavior in newsvendor experiments is representative …

Reference Dependent Prices In Bargaining: An Experimental Examination Of Precise First Offers, Erik O. Kimbrough, David Porter, Mark Schneider

ESI Working Papers

Evidence from psychology and marketing suggests that those who make a "precise" first offer in bargaining get a better deal than those who make a "round" first offer. We report on a series of experiments designed to test for and improve our understanding of the "precise first offer" (PFO) effect in bargaining and whether it likely reflects rational optimizing or equilibrium behavior. Our experimental treatments vary whether decisions are incentivized and whether the PFO effect can emerge as an equilibrium of a cheap-talk signaling game. We find evidence of a PFO effect when subjects read a vignette and make unincentivized …

All Pay Quality-Bids In Score Procurement Auctions, Dan Kovenock, Jingfeng Lu

ESI Working Papers

In this paper, we study score procurement auctions with all-pay quality bids. A supplier’s score is the difference between his quality and price bids. The supplier with the highest score wins and gets paid his own price bid. The procurer’s payoff is the difference between the winner’s quality and the procurer’s payments to the suppliers. Equilibrium quality and price bids are solved without first obtaining the corresponding equilibrium scores. We find that quality bids, the suppliers’ payoffs and the procurer’s payoff do not depend on whether price bids are made contingent on quality bids. Compared to a benchmark of winner-pay …

Rationally Inattentive Savers And Monetary Policy Changes: A Laboratory Experiment, Andrea Civelli, Cary Deck, Antonella Tutino

ESI Working Papers

We study the response of consumption and saving decisions of rationally inattentive individuals to changes in monetary policy in the laboratory. First, we theoretically characterize the choices of a rationally inattentive agent processing information about the interest rate. Then, we design an experiment with induced inattention to test for the predictions of the model, contrasting them to the full information case. Consistent with the predictions, experimental subjects (a) increase attention when utility gains exceed cognitive costs of tracking the policy rate and decrease savings when their perceived economic outlook deteriorates; (b) respond to Delphic, but not Odyssean, forms of forward …

Reconsidering Rational Expectations And The Aggregation Of Diverse Information In Laboratory Security Markets, Brice Corgnet, Cary Deck, Mark Desantis, Kyle Hampton, Erik O. Kimbrough

ESI Working Papers

The ability of markets to aggregate dispersed information is a cornerstone of economics and finance. In a seminal experiment, Plott and Sunder (1988) offer support for the rational expectations hypothesis. However, recent laboratory experiments have called into question the robustness of those initial results. In this paper, we offer the first attempt to directly replicate key findings of the original study. Failing to replicate their results, the post-study probability that market performance is better described by rational expectations than the prior information (Walrasian) model is low. Given this result, we introduce a new treatment that implements a market structure consistent …