London School of Economics and Political Science

About: London School of Economics and Political Science is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 8759 authors who have published 35017 publications receiving 1436302 citations.

Wild binary segmentation for multiple change-point detection

Abstract: We propose a new technique, called wild binary segmentation (WBS), for consistent estimation of the number and locations of multiple change-points in data. We assume that the number of change-points can increase to infinity with the sample size. Due to a certain random localisation mechanism, WBS works even for very short spacings between the change-points and/or very small jump magnitudes, unlike standard binary segmentation. On the other hand, despite its use of localisation, WBS does not require the choice of a window or span parameter, and does not lead to a significant increase in computational complexity. WBS is also easy to code. We propose two stopping criteria for WBS: one based on thresholding and the other based on what we term the ‘strengthened Schwarz information criterion’. We provide default recommended values of the parameters of the procedure and show that it offers very good practical performance in comparison with the state of the art. The WBS methodology is implemented in the R package wbs, available on CRAN. In addition, we provide a new proof of consistency of binary segmentation with improved rates of convergence, as well as a corresponding result for WBS.

Investment and technical progress

Abstract: Models in which the growth rate is exogenous provide no role for government in determining growth. In our model, growth is associated with investment, through externalities from "learning by watching," rather than with the level of the capital stock. Presumption of a technical progress function with first increasing and then decreasing returns leads to multiple steady-state growth equilibria. There is also an explicit role of government policy in setting tax rates on output. It follows that two economies with identical structures and stochastic tax policies may exhibit very different growth paths over sustained periods, although the stationary distribution of growth rates is the same. Given the desirability in principle of subsidizing investment, various practical methods are considered. Copyright 1992 by Oxford University Press.

Do International Human Rights Treaties Improve Respect for Human Rights

Abstract: After the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights, many global and regional human rights treaties have been concluded. Critics argue that these are unlikely to have made any actual differe...

Functional-Coefficient Regression Models for Nonlinear Time Series

Abstract: Functional-co efficient Regression Models for Nonlinear Time Series ZONGWU C A I Department of Mathematics University of North Carolina Charlotte, NC 28223, USA J I A N Q I N G FAN* Department of Statistics University of California Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA QlWEI Yao' Institute of Mathematics and Statistics University of Kent at Canterbury Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, U K Abstract We apply the local linear regression technique for estimation of functional-coefficient regres­ sion models for time series data The models include threshold autoregressive models (Tong 1990) and functional-coefficient autoregressive models (Chen and Tsay 1993) as special cases but with the added advantages such as depicting finer structure of the underlying dynamics and better post-sample forecasting performance We have also proposed a new bootstrap test for the goodness of fit of models and a bandwidth selector based on newly defined cross-validatory estimation for the expected forecasting errors The proposed methodology is data-analytic and is of appreciable flexibility to analyze complex and multivariate nonlinear structures without suffering from the curse of dimensionality The asymptotic properties of the proposed esti­ mators are investigated under the a-mixing condition Both simulated and real data examples are used for illustration Keywords: a-mixing; Asymptotic normality; Bootstrap; Forecasting; Goodness-of-fit test; Local linear regression; Nonlinear time series; Varying-coefficient models *Partially supported by N S F Grant DMS-9803200 and NSA 96-1-0015 +Partially supported by E P S R C Grant L16358 and B B S R C / E P S R C Grant 96/MMI09785

The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification

Abstract: This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard new economic geography model, we find that following division cities in West Germany that were close to the new border between East and West Germany experienced a substantial decline in population growth relative to other West German cities. We provide several pieces of evidence that the decline of the border cities can be entirely accounted for by their loss in market access and is neither driven by differences in industrial structure nor differences in the degree of war related destruction. Finally, we also find some first evidence of a recovery of the border cities after the reunification of East and West Germany.