Offering a unifying theoretical perspective not readily available in any other text, this innovative guide to econometrics uses simple geometrical arguments to develop students' intuitive understanding of basic and advanced topics, emphasizing throughout the practical applications of modern theory and nonlinear techniques of estimation. One theme of the text is the use of artificial regressions for estimation, reference, and specification testing of nonlinear models, including diagnostic tests for parameter constancy, serial correlation, heteroscedasticity, and other types of mis-specification. Explaining how estimates can be obtained and tests can be carried out, the authors go beyond a mere algebraic description to one that can be easily translated into the commands of a standard econometric software package. Covering an unprecedented range of problems with a consistent emphasis on those that arise in applied work, this accessible and coherent guide to the most vital topics in econometrics today is indispensable for advanced students of econometrics and students of statistics interested in regression and related topics. It will also suit practising econometricians who want to update their skills. Flexibly designed to accommodate a variety of course levels, it offers both complete coverage of the basic material and separate chapters on areas of specialized interest.

Estimation and Inference in Econometrics

A key open question for theories of reference-dependent preferences is what determines the reference point. One candidate is expectations: what people expect could affect how they feel about what actually occurs. In a real-effort experiment, we manipulate the rational expectations of subjects and check whether this manipulation influences their effort provision. We find that effort provision is significantly different between treatments in the way predicted by models of expectation-based reference-dependent preferences: if expectations are high, subjects work longer and earn more money than if expectations are low.

Reference Points and Effort Provision

Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal policies, namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent government to appropriate rents. Voters have incentives similar to the "starving the Leviathan" classic argument, and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well. We test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints, with a reasonable amount of success.

/pdf/why-is-fiscal-policy-often-procyclical-1korenvcjc.pdf

Why is Fiscal Policy Often Procyclical

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19010/1/cesifo1_wp1546.pdf

Trade and business cycle synchronization in OECD countries: A re-examination

Worker industry affiliation plays a crucial role in how trade policy affects wages in many trade models. Yet, most research has focused on how trade policy affects wages by altering the economy-wide returns to a specific worker characteristic (i.e. skill or education) rather than through worker-industry affiliation. This Paper exploits drastic trade liberalizations in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s to investigate the relationship between protection and industry wages. Using the Colombian National Household Survey we first compute industry wage premiums, adjusting for a series of worker, job, and firm characteristics. We find that Colombian industry wage premiums exhibit remarkably less persistence over time than US wage premiums. Similarly, tariffs are less correlated over time than in the US data, indicating that trade liberalization has changed the structure of protection. We next relate wage premiums to trade policy in a framework that accounts for the political economy of trade protection. Accounting for time-invariant political economy factors is critical. When we do not control for unobserved time-invariant industry characteristics, we find that workers in protected sectors earn less than workers with similar observable characteristics in unprotected sectors. Allowing for industry fixed effects reverses the result: trade protection increases relative wages. This positive relationship persists when we instrument for tariff changes. Our results are in line with short- and medium-run models of trade where labour is immobile across sectors, or, alternatively, with the existence of industry rents that are reduced by trade liberalization. In the context of the current debate on the rising income inequality in developing countries, our findings point to a source of disparity beyond the well-documented rise in the economy-wide skill premium: because tariff reductions were proportionately larger in sectors employing a high fraction of less-skilled workers, the decrease in the wage premiums in these sectors affected such workers disproportionately.

Trade, Wages and the Political Economy of Trade Protection: Evidence from the Colombian Trade Reforms

The literature on trade liberalization and environment has not considered federal structures. This paper shows how the design of environmental policy in a federal system has implications for the effects of trade reform. Trade liberalization leads to a decline in pollution taxes regardless of whether pollution taxes are set at the federal (centralized) or local (decentralized) level, and it increases social welfare. The effect under a decentralized system is smaller than if these taxes are set by the federal government, and pollution emissions therefore decline in this case. Moreover, majority bias interacts with trade liberalization if federal taxes are used.

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Taxation in Federal Systems

Abstract We study planned changes in protective routines after the COVID-19 pandemic: in a survey in Germany among &gt;650 respondents, we find that the majority plans to use face masks in certain situations even after the end of the pandemic. We observe that this willingness is strongly related to the perception that there is something to be learned from East Asians’ handling of pandemics, even when controlling for perceived protection by wearing masks. Given strong empirical evidence that face masks help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases and given the considerable estimated health and economic costs of such diseases even pre-Corona, this would be a very positive side effect of the current crisis. 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01057-z.pdf

Keep that mask on: will Germans become more like East Asians?

/pdf/keep-that-mask-on-will-germans-become-more-like-east-asians-1ud3m88k.pdf

Countries differ substantially in the emphasis on the public sector and the ratio between state consumption and provision of public goods. It seems that these differences are often not well explained by only assuming a heterogeneous population. In this paper, I take differing state preferences as given and investigate how changes in state preferences affect the provision of a public good. The provision of the public good is modelled as a two-stage game with the state and the citizens as players. I find that the Nash equilibrium provision of the public good is independent of a so-called "welfare state" parameter. In contrast, an increase in a parameter measuring the relative importance of public good provision vs. state consumption leads to an increase in the overall public good provision, while private provision declines.

State Preferences and the Provision of Public Goods / Staatspräferenzen und die Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter

Countries differ substantially in the emphasis on the public sector and the ratio between state consumption and provision of public goods. It seems that these differences are often not well explained by only assuming a heterogeneous population. In this paper, the author takes differing state preferences as given and investigates how changes in state preferences affect the provision of a public good. The provision of the public good is modelled as a two-stage game with the state and the citizens as players. The author finds that the Nash equilibrium provision of the public good is independent of a so-called "welfare state" parameter. In contrast, an increase in a parameter measuring the relative importance of public good provision vs. state consumption leads to an increase in the overall public good provision, while private provision declines.

Xenia Matschke

Papers

Trade Liberalization and Environmental Taxation in Federal Systems

Keep that mask on: will Germans become more like East Asians?

Keep that mask on: will Germans become more like East Asians?

State Preferences and the Provision of Public Goods / Staatspräferenzen und die Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter

State Preferences and the Provision of Public Goods