Using the result that under the null hypothesis of no misspecification an asymptotically efficient estimator must have zero asymptotic covariance with its difference from a consistent but asymptotically inefficient estimator, specification tests are devised for a number of model specifications in econometrics. Local power is calculated for small departures from the null hypothesis. An instrumental variable test as well as tests for a time series cross section model and the simultaneous equation model are presented. An empirical model provides evidence that unobserved individual factors are present which are not orthogonal to the included right-hand-side variable in a common econometric specification of an individual wage equation.

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Specification Tests in Econometrics

This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent description of the cross-country data. The paper also examines the implications of the Solow model for convergence in standards of living, that is, for whether poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries. The evidence indicates that, holding population growth and capital accumulation constant, countries converge at about the rate the augmented Solow model predicts. This paper takes Robert Solow seriously. In his classic 1956 article Solow proposed that we begin the study of economic growth by assuming a standard neoclassical production function with decreasing returns to capital. Taking the rates of saving and population growth as exogenous, he showed that these two vari- ables determine the steady-state level of income per capita. Be- cause saving and population growth rates vary across countries, different countries reach different steady states. Solow's model gives simple testable predictions about how these variables influ- ence the steady-state level of income. The higher the rate of saving, the richer the country. The higher the rate of population growth, the poorer the country. This paper argues that the predictions of the Solow model are, to a first approximation, consistent with the evidence. Examining recently available data for a large set of countries, we find that saving and population growth affect income in the directions that Solow predicted. Moreover, more than half of the cross-country variation in income per capita can be explained by these two variables alone. Yet all is not right for the Solow model. Although the model correctly predicts the directions of the effects of saving and

/pdf/a-contribution-to-the-empirics-of-economic-growth-27cl5gkqam.pdf

A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth

An intertemporal model for the capital market is deduced from the portfolio selection behavior by an arbitrary number of investors who aot so as to maximize the expected utility of lifetime consumption and who can trade continuously in time. Explicit demand functions for assets are derived, and it is shown that, unlike the one-period model, current demands are affected by the possibility of uncertain changes in future investment opportunities. After aggregating demands and requiring market clearing, the equilibrium relationships among expected returns are derived, and contrary to the classical capital asset pricing model, expected returns on risky assets may differ from the riskless rate even when they have no systematic or market risk. ONE OF THE MORE important developments in modern capital market theory is the Sharpe-Lintner-Mossin mean-variance equilibrium model of exchange, commonly called the capital asset pricing model.2 Although the model has been the basis for more than one hundred academic papers and has had significant impact on the non-academic financial community,' it is still subject to theoretical and empirical criticism. Because the model assumes that investors choose their portfolios according to the Markowitz [21] mean-variance criterion, it is subject to all the theoretical objections to this criterion, of which there are many.4 It has also been criticized for the additional assumptions required,5 especially homogeneous expectations and the single-period nature of the model. The proponents of the model who agree with the theoretical objections, but who argue that the capital market operates "as if" these assumptions were satisfied, are themselves not beyond criticism. While the model predicts that the expected excess return from holding an asset is proportional to the covariance of its return with the market

http://jpkc.fudan.edu.cn/picture/article/296/c7/92/0e8c302443d092d8b77a256079cf/3a6483db-591a-42b5-b904-e2430eb26c6a.pdf

An intertemporal capital asset pricing model

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

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International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Is public expenditure productive

High tax rates that distort incentives and create large deadweight losses have been reduced, but there is still much more to be done to improve the tax system. It is useful to distinguish between tax rules that represent tax expenditures relative to a pure income tax from rules that represent tax expenditures relative to a consumption tax. I think it is important to focus on tax expenditures relative to a consumption tax base. It is possible that if there were no estate tax, the present value of the taxes paid by future heirs would exceed the revenue lost by abolishing the estate tax. On the corporate side, a shift to a territorial system of taxation would have very substantial favorable effects, while pass-through entities have a very weak case for a significantly lower tax rate. The net effect of such tax changes would be an increase in the budget deficit, though that increase is likely to be only temporary due to legislative rules. I am optimistic that there will be tax reforms enacted in the next twelve months holding great promise for improving our tax system and our economy.

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The tax reform agenda

The distribution of wealth is one of the most important and least studied features of our economic life. A lack of good data on household wealth is the primary reason for the inadequate attention to this subject. Moreover, the evidence that is available from household surveys and estate records excludes the most important asset of the vast majority of households: the value of future social security benefits. The purpose of the current paper is to present evidence on the distribution of social security wealth and to use these estimates to analyze the impact of alternative methods of adjusting future benefits for changes in the price level.

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Social Security Wealth: The Impact of Alternative Inflation Adjustments

Introduction to "The United States in the World Economy"

This paper presents econometric evidence on the effect of tax incentives on business investment in the United States in the period from 1953 through 1978. The analysis emphasizes that the interaction of inflation and existing tax rules has contributed substantially to the decline of business investment since the late 1960's. Because the investment process is far too complex for any simple econometric model to be convincing, I have estimated three quite different models of investment behavior. The strength of the empirical evidence rests on the fact that all three specifications support the same conclusion. More generally, the analysis and evidence show that the theoretical models of macroeconomic equilibrium should specify explicitly the role of distortionary taxes, especially taxes on capital income. The failure to include such tax rules can have dramatic and misleading effects on the qualitative as well as the quantitative properties of macroeconomic theories. MY SUBJECT in this lecture is one to which Irving Fisher devoted considerable analytic and econometric effort: the effect of inflation on financial markets and capital formation.3 Nowadays, every student learns of Fisher's conclusion that each percentage point increase in the steady-state inflation rate raises the nominal interest rate by one per cent, leaving the real rate of interest unchanged. Moreover, since the supply of saving depends on the real rate of interest and the demand for investable funds also depends on the real rate of interest, a change in the rate of inflation would have essentially no effect on the economy's real equilibrium. I say "essentially" no effect because another great Yale economist, James Tobin [49], reminded us in the 1964 Fisher Lecture that an increase in the nominal interest rate could cause households to substitute capital for money in their portfolios, thereby reducing the real interest rate. The Fisher-Tobin analysis, like most theoretical analyses of macroeconomic equilibrium, ignores the role of the taxes levied on capital income. While this may have been a reasonable simplification at some time in the past, it is quite inappropriate today. Taxes on capital income with marginal rates that are often 'This paper was presented as the Fisher-Schultz Lecture at the World Congress of the Econometric Society. 29 August 1980. The research is part of the NBER Program on Taxation and of the Bureau's special study of Capital Formation. The financial support of the National Science Foundation and the NBER is gratefully acknowledged.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/1912766

Martin Feldstein

Papers

The tax reform agenda

Social Security Wealth: The Impact of Alternative Inflation Adjustments

Introduction to "The United States in the World Economy"

Inflation, tax rules and investment: some