Econometrics Commons^™

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index — October 2010, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Border Metropolitan Water Forecast Accuracy, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Angel L. Molina Jr.

Border Region Modeling Project

Municipal water consumption planning is an active area of research due to infrastructure construction and maintenance costs, supply constraints, and water quality assurance. In spite of that, relatively few water forecast accuracy assessments have been completed to date, although some internal documentation may exist as part of the proprietary “grey literature.” This study utilizes a data set of previously published municipal consumption forecasts to partially fill that gap in the empirical water economics literature. Previously published municipal water econometric forecasts for three public utilities are examined for predictive accuracy against two random walk benchmarks commonly used in regional analyses. Descriptive …

Estimating The Garch Diffusion: Simulated Maximum Likelihood In Continuous Time, Tore Selland Kleppe, Jun Yu, Hans J. Skaug

Research Collection School Of Economics

A new algorithm is developed to provide a simulated maximum likelihood estimation of the GARCH diffusion model of Nelson (1990) based on return data only. The method combines two accurate approximation procedures, namely, the polynomial expansion of Ait-Sahalia (2008) to approximate the transition probability density of return and volatility, and the Efficient Importance Sampler (EIS) of Richard and Zhang (2007) to integrate out the volatility. The first and second order terms in the polynomial expansion are used to generate a base-line importance density for an EIS algorithm. The higher order terms are included when evaluating the importance weights. Monte Carlo …

A New Bayesian Unit Root Test In Stochastic Volatility Models, Yong Li, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A new posterior odds analysis is proposed to test for a unit root in volatility dynamics in the context of stochastic volatility models. This analysis extends the Bayesian unit root test of So and Li (1999, Journal of Business Economic Statistics) in two important ways. First, a numerically more stable algorithm is introduced to compute the Bayes factor, taking into account the special structure of the competing models. Owing to its numerical stability, the algorithm overcomes the problem of diverged “size” in the marginal likelihood approach. Second, to improve the “power” of the unit root test, a mixed prior specification …

Standardized Lm Tests For Spatial Error Dependence In Linear Or Panel Regressions, Badi H. Baltagi, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The robustness of the LM tests for spatial error dependence of Burridge (1980) for the linear regression model and Anselin (1988) for the panel regression model are examined. While both tests are asymptotic ally robust against distributional misspecification, their finite sample behavior can be sensitive to the spatial layout. To overcome this shortcoming, standardized LM tests are suggested. Monte Carlo results show that the new tests possess good finite sample properties. An important observation made throughout this study is that the LM tests for spatial dependence need to be both mean- and variance-adjusted for good finite sample performance to be …

Smoothing Local-To-Moderate Unit Root Theory, Peter C. B. Phillips, Tassos Magdalinos, Liudas Giraitis

Research Collection School Of Economics

A limit theory is established for autoregressive time series that smooths the transition between local and moderate deviations from unity and provides a transitional form that links conventional unit root distributions and the standard normal. Edgeworth expansions of the limit theory are given. These expansions show that the limit theory that holds for values of the autoregressive coefficient that are closer to stationarity than local (i.e. deviations of the form rho = 1 + c/n, where n is the sample size and c < 0) holds up to the second order. Similar expansions around the limiting Cauchy density are provided for the mildly explosive case. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Study Of Price Evolution In Online Toy Market, Zhenlin Yang, Lydia L Gan, Fang-Fang Tang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study and contrast pricing and price evolution of online only (Dotcom) and online branch of multi-channel retailers (OBMCRs) based on two panel data sets collected from online toy markets. Panel data regression analyses reveal several interesting empirical results: over time, OBMCRs and Dotcoms charge similar prices on average but Dotcoms significantly increase their shipping costs that eventually drive the overall average price of Dotcoms higher than that of OBMCRs. Price dispersions of both types of retailers are persistent. The price dispersion of OBMCRs is higher than that of Dotcoms at the beginning and does not change much over time, …

A Conversation With Eric Ghysels, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Eric Ghysels is the Bernstein Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Finance at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2008, Eric Ghysels and Robert Engle (2003 Nobel co-Laureate in Economic Science with Clive Granger) founded the Society for Financial Econometrics (SoFiE), establishing a global network of academics and practitioners dedicated to the fast-growing field of financial econometrics. In June 2010, Eric visited the Centre for Financial Econometrics (CoFiE) and the Sim Kee Boon Institute (SKBI) of Financial Economics at Singapore Management University. During his visit we conversed with him about SoFiE and the growing toolroom of financial …

Bias In Estimating Multivariate And Univariate Diffusions, Xiaohu Wang, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Multivariate continuous time models are now widely used in economics and finance. Empirical applications typically rely on some process of discretization so that the system may be estimated with discrete data. This paper introduces a framework for discretizing linear multivariate continuous time systems that includes the commonly used Euler and trapezoidal approximations as special cases and leads to a general class of estimators for the mean reversion matrix. Asymptotic distributions and bias formulae are obtained for estimates of the mean reversion parameter. Explicit expressions are given for the discretization bias and its relationship to estimation bias in both multivariate and …

Asymptotic Distributions Of The Least Squares Estimator For Diffusion Processes, Qiankun Zhou, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The asymptotic distributions of the least squares estimator of the mean reversion parameter (κ) are developed in a general class of diffusion models under three sampling schemes, namely, ongspan, in-fill and the combination of long-span and in-fill. The models have an affine structure in the drift function, but allow for nonlinearity in the diffusion function. The limiting distributions are quite different under the alternative sampling schemes. In particular, the in-fill limiting distribution is non-standard and depends on the initial condition and the time span whereas the other two are Gaussian. Moreover, while the other two distributions are discontinuous at κ …

Bias-Corrected Estimation For Spatial Autocorrelation, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The biasedness issue arising from the maximum likelihood estimation of the spatial autoregressive model (SAR) is further investigated under a broader set-up than that in Bao and Ullah (2007a). A major difficulty in analytically evaluating the expectations of ratios of quadratic forms is overcome by a simple bootstrap procedure. With that, the corrections on bias and variance of the spatial estimator can easily be made up to third-order, and once this is done, the estimators of other model parameters become nearly unbiased. Compared with the analytical approach, the new approach is much simpler, and can easily be extended to other …

Measurement And High Finance, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu, Eric Ghysels

Research Collection School Of Economics

Turbulence in the world of banking and finance over the last two years has riveted media attention on the financial industry, exposing practices, products and risks in the industry to widespread public scrutiny. Questions continue to be asked about the management and regulation of an industry whose performance is now seen to affect the world’s financial health and its prospects as much as it does national savings and individual retirement funds.

Economic Crisis And External Trade In Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Nowadays, Sudan suffers severe financial crisis with the eminent demise of 75% of its oil revenues that represented over 90% of its foreign currency after the secession of its Southern part after a constitutional referendum. The compensatory revenues generating economic sectors are not able in the short, medium or runs to function due to the lack/diminished infrastructures. Hard currency exchange rates have soured against the domestic one and inflation sky-rocketed with severe recession grasping the economic cycle in the country which assess logic assumptions of stagflation. Reforming Sudan's foreign trade sector is essential though it will not replace oil revenues …

Convergencia Y Divergencia En El Sector Industrial De Los Estados Mexicanos: Un Análisis Espacial No Paramétrico, Vicente German-Soto, Jose Luis Escobedo Sagaz, Luis Flores Gallegos

Vicente German-Soto

Italian Class Actions Eight Months In: The Driving Forces, Massimiliano De Santis, Renzo Comolli, Francesco Lo Passo

Massimiliano De Santis

No abstract provided.

Multivariate Fractional Regression Estimation Of Econometric Share Models, John Mullahy

John Mullahy

This paper describes and applies econometric strategies for estimating regression models of economic share data outcomes where the shares may take boundary values (zero and one) with nontrivial probability. The main focus of the paper is on the conditional mean structures of such data. The paper proposes an extension of the fractional regression methodology proposed by Papke and Wooldridge, 1996, 2008, in univariate cross-sectional and panel contexts. The paper discusses the stochastic aspects of share definition and measurement, and summarizes important features of the existing literature on econometric strategies for share model estimation. The paper then goes on to discuss …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index — September 2010, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

A Robust Lm Test For Spatial Error Components, Zhenlin Yang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper presents previous termanext term modified previous termLM test of spatial error components,next term which is shown to be previous termrobustnext term against distributional misspecifications and previous termspatialnext term layouts. The proposed previous termtestnext term differs from the previous termLM testnext term of Anselin (2001) by previous termanext term term in the denominators of the previous termtestnext term statistics. This term disappears when either the previous termerrorsnext term are normal, or the variance of the diagonal elements of the product of previous termspatialnext term weights matrix and its transpose is zero or approaches to zero as sample size goes …

How Does Income Inequality Affect The Growth Of U.S. Counties?, Jeremy Roth

Economics Honors Projects

This paper aims to conduct a precise test of the political economy hypothesis linking income inequality and economic growth. By choosing covariates from a detailed county-level dataset and assuming that U.S. counties experience perfect capital mobility, I shut off the four possible channels linking inequality and growth other than political economy. This is a first in an empirical literature that has reported conflicting findings with observations of states and countries. I also present thematic maps to illustrate the cross-county variation in key growth determinants that is masked by state-level studies. My econometric tests find a negative association between the initial …

Factors Effecting Job Satisfaction Of Employees In Pakistani Banking Sector, Ahmed Imran Hunjra, Muhammad Irfan Chani, Sher Aslam, Muhammad Azam, Kashif -Ur- Rehman

Muhammad Irfan Chani