A utility function has been proposed that values more those lives that are saved by not imposing a harmful treatment and values less those lives that could be saved by treating people who would otherwise die. I do not dispute the ethical motivation behind this kind of asymmetry. However, as my example illustrates, the scope of applicability of such a decision criterion may be limited.
Business cycles (a periodic change of e.g. GDP over five to ten years) exist, but a proper explanation for it is still lacking. Here we extend the well-known NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) model, resulting in a set of differ-ential equations. However, the solution is marginal stable. Therefore we find a nat-ural sinusoidal oscillation of inflation and unemployment just as observed in busi-ness cycles. When speculation is present, the instability becomes more severe. So we present for the first time a mathematical explanation for business cycles. The steering of central banks by setting interest rates to keep inflation stable and low needs an overhaul. One has to distinguish between real monetary instability and the one caused naturally by business cycles.
This paper discusses three key themes in forecasting for monetary policy highlighted in the Bernanke (2024) review: the challenges in economic forecasting, the conditional nature of central bank forecasts, and the importance of forecast evaluation. In addition, a formal evaluation of the Bank of England's inflation forecasts indicates that, despite the large forecast errors in recent years, they were still accurate relative to common benchmarks.
We provide an overview of results relating to estimation and weak-instrument-robust inference in instrumental variables regression. Methods are implemented in the ivmodels software package for Python, which we use to illustrate results.
This study introduces marginal density functions of the general Bayesian Markov-Switching Vector Autoregressive (MS-VAR) process. In the case of the Bayesian MS-VAR process, we provide closed-form density functions and Monte-Carlo simulation algorithms, including the importance sampling method. The Monte-Carlo simulation method departs from the previous simulation methods because it removes the duplication in a regime vector.
We use the martingale construction of Luedtke and van der Laan (2016) to develop tests for the presence of treatment heterogeneity. The resulting sequential validation approach can be instantiated using various validation metrics, such as BLPs, GATES, QINI curves, etc., and provides an alternative to cross-validation-like cross-fold application of these metrics.
This article discusses recent developments in the literature of quantile time series models in the cases of stationary and nonstationary underline stochastic processes.
This document presents an overview of the bayesmixedlogit and bayesmixedlogitwtp Stata packages. It mirrors closely the helpfile obtainable in Stata (i.e., through help bayesmixedlogit or help bayesmixedlogitwtp). Further background for the packages can be found in Baker(2014).
This set of lecture notes discuss key concepts for the Structural Analysis of Vector Autoregressive models for the teaching of a course on Applied Macroeconometrics with Advanced Topics.
In this article, we study the statistical and asymptotic properties of break-point estimators in nonstationary autoregressive and predictive regression models for testing the presence of a single structural break at an unknown location in the full sample. Moreover, we investigate aspects such as how the persistence properties of covariates and the location of the break-point affects the limiting distribution of the proposed break-point estimators.
Many panel data sets used for pseudo-poisson estimation of three-way gravity models are implicitly unbalanced because uninformative observations are redundant for the estimation. We show with real data as well as simulations that this phenomenon, which we call latent unbalancedness, amplifies the inference problem recently studied by Weidner and Zylkin (2021).
This paper studies the implication of a fraction of the population not responding to the instrument when selecting into treatment. We show that, in general, the presence of non-responders biases the Marginal Treatment Effect (MTE) curve and many of its functionals. Yet, we show that, when the propensity score is fully supported on the unit interval, it is still possible to restore identification of the MTE curve and its functionals with an appropriate re-weighting.
For the kernel estimator of the quantile density function (the derivative of the quantile function), I show how to perform the boundary bias correction, establish the rate of strong uniform consistency of the bias-corrected estimator, and construct the confidence bands that are asymptotically exact uniformly over the entire domain $[0,1]$. The proposed procedures rely on the pivotality of the studentized bias-corrected estimator and known anti-concentration properties of the Gaussian approximation for its supremum.
This paper proposes IV-based estimators for the semiparametric distribution regression model in the presence of an endogenous regressor, which are based on an extension of IV probit estimators. We discuss the causal interpretation of the estimators and two methods (monotone rearrangement and isotonic regression) to ensure a monotonically increasing distribution function. Asymptotic properties and simulation evidence are provided. An application to wage equations reveals statistically significant and heterogeneous differences to the inconsistent OLS-based estimator.
We provide a geometric formulation of the problem of identification of the matching surplus function and we show how the estimation problem can be solved by the introduction of a generalized entropy function over the set of matchings.
This paper establishes an extended representation theorem for unit-root VARs. A specific algebraic technique is devised to recover stationarity from the solution of the model in the form of a cointegrating transformation. Closed forms of the results of interest are derived for integrated processes up to the 4-th order. An extension to higher-order processes turns out to be within the reach on an induction argument.
Resumo Neste artigo, é proposta uma reflexão a respeito da relação entre o campo de estudos institucionalista e o pluralismo em Ciências Econômicas, explorando algumas das contribuições de Douglass North. Para tanto, discute-se como as categorias de aprendizado e eficiência adaptativa são mobilizadas para dar conta das relações entre mudança institucional e econômica, incorporando a intencionalidade dos agentes. Ainda, são debatidos os desafios epistemológicos de assumir a incerteza ubíqua como pressuposto da análise econômica institucional. Considera-se que a principal contribuição deste trabalho é demonstrar de que forma o pensamento de Douglass North se aproxima da caracterização dos sistemas econômicos enquanto sistemas abertos, no sentido proposto por Sheila Dow em seu conceito de pluralismo estruturado.
O objetivo do artigo é pontuar questões que ajudem a refletir sobre a necessidade de uma profunda reestruturação do movimento sindical brasileiro em razão das múltiplas transformações disruptivas que ocorrem no mundo do trabalho. A argumentação parte da constatação de que as abordagens analíticas produzidas no mundo acadêmico contribuem para estimular debates no âmbito do movimento sindical. Algumas dessas interpretações sugerem que os dirigentes e assessores sindicais são desafiados a responder aos múltiplos ataques contra os direitos do trabalho e, ao mesmo tempo, precisam reformular as estratégias de organização e luta sindical. São apresentadas as diretrizes de uma proposta de reforma sindical direcionada para enfrentar os desafios diagnosticados.
Resumo Este trabalho discute elementos conformadores de instabilidade financeira em países em desenvolvimento, buscando evidenciar mecanismos de incentivo que condicionam o comportamento dos diferentes setores presentes nas economias ao longo dos ciclos. É utilizada como referência a hipótese de fragilidade financeira de Minsky (1986), e avaliados aspectos estruturais que acentuam a fragilidade deste grupo de países, relacionados à sua forma de inserção comercial e financeira, num contexto de elevada liberdade de fluxos de capitais. Partindo do balanço estilizado e das principais relações financeiras intersetoriais em uma economia aberta, notam-se elementos que conduzem a uma postura procíclica por parte dos diferentes setores, elevando sua vulnerabilidade nos períodos de crescimento, a despeito dos diferentes objetivos de atuação dos setores público e privado. É ressaltada a relevância de instrumentos que contribuam para que o Estado constitua margens de manobra para atuar de modo anticíclico e reduzam sua exposição à oscilação dos fluxos internacionais de capitais.
We bound features of counterfactual choices in the nonparametric random utility model of demand, i.e. if observable choices are repeated cross-sections and one allows for unrestricted, unobserved heterogeneity. In this setting, tight bounds are developed on counterfactual discrete choice probabilities and on the expectation and c.d.f. of (functionals of) counterfactual stochastic demand.