Econometrics Commons^™

Can Community Water Projects Combat Child Diarrhea? Results From The Solomon Islands, Thomas G. Sackman

Master's Theses

There is a vast amount of existing literature that has empirically scrutinized whether or not community water projects have the ability to mitigate diarrheal disease. A strong and persistent belief thinks that community water projects do have the means, however, over the decades empirical work commonly finds this to simply not be true. This study expands the research question to the Solomon Islands. The research tests the hypothesis using a differences-in-differences identification strategy by utilizing the government’s staggered timing rollout of community water subprojects with whether or not a village received a community water subproject to test for a program …

Matrilineal Asset Inheritance, Female Bargaining Power, And Household Welfare In Malawi, Nicholas T. Garcia

Master's Theses

Matrilineal inheritance practices in Malawi exogenously determine female land holdings at the time of marriage, allowing for the identification of the effect of increased female bargaining power on household consumption decisions. I use the matrilineal ethnicity of the head of household as an instrument for the share of total household land inherited by the female head or male head’s wife. I find that child’s height-for-age decreases with female assets, and evidence suggesting increased consumption from households’ own production. Since the food basket from own consumption is high in carbs but not nutritious, long-term child health suffers despite receiving more resources …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- May 2014, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Endogenous Network Production Functions With Selectivity, William C. Horrace, Xiaodong Liu, Eleonora Patacchini

Center for Policy Research

We consider a production function model that transforms worker inputs into outputs through peer effect networks. The distinguishing features of this production model are that the network is formal and observable through worker scheduling, and selection into the network is done by a manager. We discuss identification and suggest a variety of estimation techniques. In particular, we tackle endogeneity issues arising from selection into groups and exposure to common group factors by employing a polychotomous Heckman-type selection correction. We illustrate our method using data from the Syracuse University Men’s Basketball team, where at any point in time the coach selects …

On Confidence Intervals For Autoregressive Roots And Predictive Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Local to unity limit theory is used in applications to construct confidence intervals (CIs) for autoregressive roots through inversion of a unit root test (Stock (1991)). Such CIs are asymptotically valid when the true model has an autoregressive root that is local to unity (rho = 1 + c/n), but are shown here to be invalid at the limits of the domain of definition of the localizing coefficient c because of a failure in tightness and the escape of probability mass. Failure at the boundary implies that these CIs have zero asymptotic coverage probability in the stationary case and vicinities …

Maximum Likelihood Estimation Of Partially Observed Diffusion Models, Tore Selland Kleppe, Jun Yu, Hans J. Skaug

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops a maximum likelihood (ML) method to estimate partially observed diffusion models based on data sampled at discrete times. The method combines two techniques recently proposed in the literature in two separate steps. In the first step, the closed form approach of Aït-Sahalia (2008) is used to obtain a highly accurate approximation to the joint transition probability density of the latent and the observed states. In the second step, the efficient importance sampling technique of Richard and Zhang (2007) is used to integrate out the latent states, thereby yielding the likelihood function. Using both simulated and real data, …

New York Camp Econometrics Ix Program, Center For Policy Research

Camp Econometrics-Programs

No abstract provided.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- April 2014, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Review Of Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled By African Development Statistics And What To Do About It, Marja Hinfelaar, Caesar Cheelo

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

No abstract provided.

Forecasting Short-Term Stock Returns Using Irregular Pricing Behavior In The Options Market, Thomas W. Sampson

Master's Theses

This paper uses regression analysis to examine the relationship between today's implied volatility on AMD stock options with tomorrow's return on the underlying. An economic analyis of the options markets' micro-structure is discussed to establish the intuition and the basis behind the relationship. Four seperate models are developed to examine its statistical significance and the ability of options' prices to accurately forecast returns on the underlying security.

The hypothesis of the paper is that daily changes in implied volatility can be used to earn higher than expected returns on the underlying stock. I find that implied volatility can be used …

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- March 2014, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- February 2014, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

X-Differencing And Dynamic Panel Model Estimation, Chirok Han, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper introduces a new estimation method for dynamic panel models with fixed effects and AR(p) idiosyncratic errors. The proposed estimator uses a novel form of systematic differencing, called X-differencing, that eliminates fixed effects and retains information and signal strength in cases where there is a root at or near unity. The resulting "panel fully aggregated" estimator (PFAE) is obtained by pooled least squares on the system of X-differenced equations. The method is simple to implement, consistent for all parameter values, including unit root cases, and has strong asymptotic and finite sample performance characteristics that dominate other procedures, such as …

An Analysis Of A High School Dropout In The United States, Matthew Walsh

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

The study explores the socioeconomic factors that lead to a student dropping out of high school. Unlike other papers this study focuses on the whole United States and the three primary ethnic groups within the country. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics, is used to investigate the crisis facing the future of the American economy across all fifty states. The results show that socioeconomic differences are predictive in the probability of a high school student dropping out prior to graduation

Demographics On Crime: A Look At The U.S.A., Nicolas Eceizabarrena

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This study aims to identify how change in social indicators and demographics affect crime, more specifically, the number of aggravated assaults. As policy makers attempt to reduce crime to improve social conditions, changes to social indicator and demographic variables would allow quantifying these changes. This study uses a cross-sectional data set for the fifty states in the United States of America for the 2005 period.

Rhode Island Current Conditions Index -- January 2014, Leonard Lardaro

The Rhode Island Current Conditions Index

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomic Determinants Of Violent Crime Rates In The U.S., Jacob Gesin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper looks into socioeconomic factors affecting three racial groups within the United States, and the possibility of their effects on rates of violent crime. This study incorporates US census data in conjunction with FBI crime statistics in order to identify a correlation between select sociological variables experienced by different racial groups, and the rates of violent crime committed within those groups. Based on metropolitan areas by state for the year of 2012, the results of this study show that socioeconomic and family factors have a significant effect on violent crime rates regardless of race. Furthermore, violent crime rate gaps …

Remittances And Economic Growth In Mexico: Long Term Implications, Sean Lambert

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the impact of remittances on economic growth by looking at time series data from 1960 to 2012 from the country of Mexico. Using the OLS method, these data will be analyzed to see what the long term impact of remittances have been on the growth rate of Mexico. Drawing from the heavily established literature in the field of growth economics, this paper attempts to show the relevance of such theory in the case of the well documented phenomenon of remittances. Mexico is the world’s fourth largest net recipient of remittance inflows and the third largest trading partner …

The Effects Of The First Round Of Quantitative Easing On Stock Prices In The United States, William Manak

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper examines the effects that the first round of the large-scale assert purchases known as Quantitative Easing (QE1) had on US stock prices. The paper focuses on the time period starting from the announcement of QE1 to before the second round of Quantitative Easing had been announced. This paper hopes to find a significant effect of stock prices in China as well as the exchange rate between the two countries, as the US and China are major trade partners. The effects of Chinese stocks and the exchange rate will be compared to the lower interest rates that had resulted …

The Effect Of Extending Unemployment Insurance Benefits On Northeast State Unemployment Rates, Guillaume Sabourin

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the effect of changes in the length of unemployment benefits on the unemployment rates of 10 northeast US states. This study includes the most likely variables that would influence the unemployment rate during the time span preceding and following the recent recession. The study observes various contributing factors to unemployment including median income, state GDP, demographics, education, and the construction, manufacturing, and financial services rate for each state. Using state-level data from government sources and a fixed effects empirical model, results suggest that unemployment benefit extensions result in a small but statistically significant increase in the unemployment …