Econometrics Commons^™

The Effect Of Changes In Racial Composition On Housing Prices: A Study Of The Most Diverse Place In The World, Youseph Anwar

Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to illustrate that increases in minority residents may lead to decreases in housing prices. I observe the effects of changes in racial composition on housing prices in Queens, NY from 2011-2015. The following econometric tools are implemented: a fixed effects model, quantile, hedonic, and OLS regressions.

New Hampshire Effect: Behavior In Sequential And Simultaneous Multi-Battle Contests, Shakun D. Mago, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

Sequential multi-battle contests are predicted to induce lower expenditure than simultaneous contests. This prediction is a result of a “New Hampshire Effect” – a strategic advantage created by the winner of the first battle. Although our laboratory study provides evidence for the New Hampshire Effect, we find that sequential contests generate significantly higher (not lower) expenditure than simultaneous contests. This is mainly because in sequential contests, there is significant over-expenditure in all battles. We suggest sunk cost fallacy and utility of winning as two complementary explanations for this behavior and provide supporting evidence.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- December 2017, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Volatility Spillovers And Linkages In Asian Stock Markets, Hwee Kwan Chow

Research Collection School Of Economics

Diebold–Yilmaz spillover indexes are computed for weekly return volatilities based on daily benchmark stock indexes of the US, the UK, and 10 Asian countries. We found (i) the strengthening of overall volatility spillovers is not a temporary surge but persisted after the crisis; (ii) the susceptibility of individual Asian stock markets to inward volatility transfers is linked to its degree of openness; and (iii) the Asian bourses are becoming more important emitters of financial shocks since the crisis. Rolling regressions on volatility linkages reveal the relative dominance of the US over the Japanese and Chinese bourses, and the level of …

Business Time Sampling Scheme With Applications To Testing Semi-Martingale Hypothesis And Estimating Integrated Volatility, Yingjie Dong, Yiu Kuen Tse

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a new method to implement the Business Time Sampling (BTS) scheme for high-frequency financial data. We compute a time-transformation (TT) function using the intraday integrated volatility estimated by a jump-robust method. The BTS transactions are obtained using the inverse of the TT function. Using our sampled BTS transactions, we test the semi-martingale hypothesis of the stock log-price process and estimate the daily realized volatility. Our method improves the normality approximation of the standardized business-time return distribution. Our Monte Carlo results show that the integrated volatility estimates using our proposed sampling strategy provide smaller root mean-squared error.

Bayesian Analysis Of Bubbles In Asset Prices, Andras Fulop, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

We develop a new asset price model where the dynamic structure of the asset price, after the fundamental value is removed, is subject to two different regimes. One regime reflects the normal period where the asset price divided by the dividend is assumed to follow a mean-reverting process around a stochastic long run mean. This latter is allowed to account for possible smooth structural change. The second regime reflects the bubble period with explosive behavior. Stochastic switches between two regimes and non-constant probabilities of exit from the bubble regime are both allowed. A Bayesian learning approach is employed to jointly …

Identifying Latent Group Structures In Nonlinear Panels, Wuyi Wang, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

We propose a procedure to identify latent group structures in nonlinear panel data models where some regression coefficients are heterogeneous across groups but homogeneous within a group and the group number and membership are unknown. To identify the group structures, we consider the order statistics for the preliminary unconstrained consistent estimators of the regression coefficients and translate the problem of classification into the problem of break detection. Then we extend the sequential binary segmentation algorithm of Bai (1997) for break detection from the time series setup to the panel data framework. We demonstrate that our method is able to identify …

Inference In Continuous Systems With Mildly Explosive Regressors, Ye Chen, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

New limit theory is developed for co-moving systems with explosive processes, connecting continuous and discrete time formulations. The theory uses double asymptotics with infill (as the sampling interval tends to zero) and large time span asymptotics. The limit theory explicitly involves initial conditions, allows for drift in the system, is provided for single and multiple explosive regressors, and is feasible to implement in practice. Simulations show that double asymptotics deliver a good approximation to the finite sample distribution, with both finite sample and asymptotic distributions showing sensitivity to initial conditions. The methods are implemented in the US real estate market …

Inference In Continuous Systems With Mildly Explosive Regressors, Ye Chen, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

New limit theory is developed for co-moving systems with explosive processes, connecting continuous and discrete time formulations. The theory uses double asymptotics with infill (as the sampling interval tends to zero) and large time span asymptotics. The limit theory explicitly involves initial conditions, allows for drift in the system, is provided for single and multiple explosive regressors, and is feasible to implement in practice. Simulations show that double asymptotics deliver a good approximation to the finite sample distribution, with both finite sample and asymptotic distributions showing sensitivity to initial conditions. The methods are implemented in the US real estate market …

Disaster And Recovery: The Effects Of Post-Disaster Aid On Economic Development, Joshua M. Drouin

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

The effects of aid on economic development is topic typically studied from the perspective of corruption and allocative efficiency. We examine aid to less developed nations from a different viewpoint; assuming aid reaches the intended recipients, does it actually benefit them? We utilize Indonesia and the 2004 earthquake and tsunami as a natural experiment to observe the influx of aid, and compare the regions development before and after the disaster. By establishing a baseline before the disaster, and utilizing a new start point after the destruction, we can gauge the reconstruction efforts and observe whether aid is beneficial or harmful. …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- November 2017, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Random Coefficient Continuous Systems: Testing For Extreme Sample Path Behaviour, Yubo Tao, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper studies a continuous time dynamic system with a random persistence parameter. The exact discrete time representation is obtained and related to several discrete time random coefficient models currently in the literature. The model distinguishes various forms of unstable and explosive behaviour according to specific regions of the parameter space that open up the potential for testing these forms of extreme behaviour. A two-stage approach that employs realized volatility is proposed for the continuous system estimation, asymptotic theory is developed, and test statistics to identify the different forms of extreme sample path behaviour are proposed. Simulations show that the …

Determining The Number Of Groups In Latent Panel Structures With An Application To Income And Democracy, Xun Lu, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a latent group panel structure as recently studied by Su, Shi, and Phillips (2014), where the number of groups is unknown and has to be determined empirically. We propose a testing procedure to determine the number of roups. Our test is a residualbased LM-type test. We show that after being appropriately standardized, our test is asymptotically normally distributed under the null hypothesis of a given number of groups and has power to detect deviations from the null. Monte Carlo simulations show that our test performs remarkably well in finite samples. We apply our method to study the effect …

Volatility Spillovers And Linkages In Asian Stock Markets, Hwee Kwan Chow-Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Diebold-Yilmaz spilloverindexes are computed for weekly return volatilities based on daily benchmarkstock indexes of US, UK and ten Asian countries. We found (i) the strengthening ofoverall volatility spillovers is not a temporary surge but persisted after thecrisis; (ii) the susceptibility ofindividual Asian stock markets to inward volatility transfers is linked to itsdegree of openness; and (iii) the Asian bourses are becoming more importantemitters of financial shocks since the crisis. Rolling regressions on volatilitylinkages reveal the relative dominance of the US over the Japanese and Chinesebourses, and the level of influence on Asian stock markets from the Chinesebourse has risen to …

Estimating Finite-Horizon Life-Cycle Models: A Quasi-Bayesian Approach, Xiaobin Liu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper proposes a quasi-Bayesian approach for structural parameters in finite-horizon life-cycle models. This approach circumvents the numerical evaluation of the gradient of the objective function and alleviates the local optimum problem. The asymptotic normality of the estimators with and without approximation errors is derived. The proposed estimators reach the semiparametric eciency bound in the general methods of moment (GMM) framework. Both the estimators and the corresponding asymptotic covariance are readily computable. The estimation procedure is easy to parallel so that the graphic processing unit (GPU) can be used to enhance the computational speed. The estimation procedure is illustrated using …

Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Of Public Health Services In West Virginia, Eric Bowen

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- October 2017, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

The Political Cost? Religious Segregation, Peace Walls, And House Prices, John A. Mccord, Michael J. Mccord, Peadar T. Davis, Martin E. Haran, Sean Macintyre

Peace and Conflict Studies

The longstanding issue of discrimination and segregation in housing markets has enveloped housing market analysis and particularly the understanding of house price determination. Whilst the relationship of segregation in residential space is diverse and encompasses numerous taxonomies, in Northern Ireland, the high level of market segregation is compounded by the addition of tactile barriers such as Peace walls. The existence of these tactile barriers serves to physically segregate communities and have the capacity to prevent the restoration of normal community interactions and market processes. This paper attempts to quantify and measure the disamenity implications and costs of these hard structures …

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 thespectral clustering techniques that are widely used to study the communitydetection problem in stochastic block models (SBMs). We show that under someweak conditions on the minimal degree, the number of communities, and theeigenvalues of the probability block matrix, the K-means algorithm applied tothe Eigenvectors of the graph Laplacian associated with its first few largesteigenvalues can classify all individuals into the true community uniformlycorrectly almost surely. Extensions to both regularized spectral clustering anddegree-corrected SBMs are also considered. We illustrate the performance ofdifferent methods on simulated networks.

Specification Test For Spatial Autoregressive Models, Liangjun Su, Xi Qu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article considers a simple test for the correct specification of linear spatial autoregressive models, assuming that the choice of the weight matrix Wn is true. We derive the limiting distributions of the test under the null hypothesis of correct specification and a sequence of local alternatives. We show that the test is free of nuisance parameters asymptotically under the null and prove the consistency of our test. To improve the finite sample performance of our test, we also propose a residual-based wild bootstrap and justify its asymptotic validity. We conduct a small set of Monte Carlo simulations to investigate …

Information (Non)Aggregation In Markets With Costly Signal Acquisition, Brice Corgnet, Cary Deck, Mark Desantis, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

Markets are often viewed as a tool for aggregating disparate private knowledge, a stance supported by past laboratory experiments. However, traders’ acquisition cost of information has typically been ignored. Results from a laboratory experiment involving six treatments varying the cost of acquiring signals of an asset’s value suggest that when information is costly, markets do not succeed in aggregating it. At an individual level, having information improves trading performance, but not enough to offset the cost of obtaining the information. Although males earn more through trading than females, this differential is offset by the greater propensity of males to buy …

Essays On The Impact Of Exchange Rate Movements On Stock Return And Country Output, Junnan Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exchange rate movements are widely believed to be a major source of uncertainty at both micro- and macro-economic levels. At the microeconomic level, corporate managers controlling risk and investors seeking to hedge their portfolios are both obviously interested in estimates of a firm’s exchange rate exposure ̶ i.e., how much of the value of a firm will be affected by exchange rate movements. At the macroeconomic level, a currency appreciation may have a contractionary effect on a country's output.

Chapter 1 tests whether the launch of the euro around 1999 significantly reduced stock market volatility and exchange rate risk exposure …

Essays On Inequality And Macroeconomic Stability, Thomas Hauner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters. . .

Chapter 1: Aggregate Wealth and Its Distribution as Determinants of Financial Crises: Panel Evidence This essay investigates the relationship between wealth inequality and financial crises across a panel of nine advanced economies over the past 100 years. While substantiation of a role for income inequality is ambiguous in the literature, evidence is presented suggesting a unique capacity for the accumulation of assets to increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis episode. Testing long-run panel data with a reduced form, two-way fixed effects model, estimates suggest that increasing wealth inequality, in an …

Who Influences Your Outcomes? The Effect Of Culture And Ethnic Origin, Neighborhood And Peers On Personal Income: A Spatial Econometric Analysis Of New York City, Anna Arakelyan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Being a “social animal”, each person is inherently embedded into a complex structure of social relations. He has role models to aspire to, conformity rules to follow, and expectations to meet. This paper explores the different social influences each person experiences in life. Specifically, I consider how a person’s ethnic community, age reference group, occupational and industry group peers, and residential area neighbors affect his total income. I introduce a novel model of multiple social networks and discuss various identification implications. I apply the model empirically to New York City, which naturally is a very favorable environment to test for …

No Mere Tautology: The Division Of Labor Is Limited By The Division Of Labor, Andrew Smyth, Bart J. Wilson

ESI Working Papers

We explore the intersection of growth theory and the theory of the firm with an experiment. Economic growth is possible in our experiment when agents specialize to exploit increasing returns. We find that low opportunity costs are sufficient for Marshallian internal economies, but that Marshallian external economies are slow to emerge in four probing treatment conditions. Transaction costs do not hamper external economies as we anticipated prior to collecting data. When external economies falter, it is because new ideas about the cost and value of more extensive specialization fail to emerge. Ideas are what make further divisions of the …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- September 2017, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

School Resources And Student Outcomes: Evidence From The State Of Illinois, Alyssa Cooper

Student Research – Stevenson Center

Literature on the subject of school resources and student outcomes tends to find that there is a positive relationship between both variables. Most literature uses per-pupil spending (PPS) or teacher salaries as a measure of school resources. While I have modeled both in my paper, my focus in this paper is on per-pupil spending. Using data from the Illinois State Board of Education from 2006-2016 and measuring student outcomes through average ACT scores, operational PPS is found to be insignificant, whereas instructional PPS is found to be positive and significant at the 5% level. Estimates suggest that a 1 standard …

Determinants Of Firm-Level Domestic Sales And Exports With Spillovers: Evidence From China, Badi H. Baltagi, Peter H. Egger, Michaela Kesina

Center for Policy Research

This paper studies the determinants of firm-level revenues, as a measure of the performance of firms in China's domestic and export markets. The analysis of the determinants of the aforementioned outcomes calls for a mixed linear-nonlinear econometric approach. The paper proposes specifying a system of equations, which is inspired by Basmann's work and recent theoretical work in international economics and conducts comparative static analyses regarding the role of exogenous shocks to the system to flesh out the relative importance of transmissions across outcomes.

Three Essays On The European Sovereign Debt Crisis With A Special Focus On Greece, Flora Leventi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters where I examine several aspects of the European sovereign debt crisis. The first chapter focuses on systemic risk. Following the financial crisis of 2007-08, both in academic as well as policy circles, much of the research has focused toward the systemic importance of financial institutions. Parallel to that research, but to somewhat lesser extent, there have been improvements in our understanding of how risk is transmitted from the financial system to the real economy. This chapter investigates a related yet distinct manifestation of systemic risk, namely systemic sovereign risk. Using data on sovereign credit …

Robust Linear Static Panel Data Models Using Ε-Contamination, Badi H. Baltagi, Georges Bresson, Anoop Chaturvedi, Guy Lacroix

Center for Policy Research

The paper develops a general Bayesian framework for robust linear static panel data models using ε-contamination. A two-step approach is employed to derive the conditional type-II maximum likelihood (ML-II) posterior distribution of the coefficients and individual effects. The ML-II posterior means are weighted averages of the Bayes estimator under a base prior and the data-dependent empirical Bayes estimator. Two-stage and three stage hierarchy estimators are developed and their finite sample performance is investigated through a series of Monte Carlo experiments. These include standard random effects as well as Mundlak-type, Chamberlain-type and Hausman-Taylor-type models. The simulation results underscore the relatively good …