Showing papers in "International Economic Review in 2003"

The band pass filter

Abstract: We develop optimal finite-sample approximations for the band pass filter. These approximations include one-sided filters that can be used in real time. Optimal approximations depend upon the details of the time series representation that generates the data. Fortunately, for U.S. macroeconomic data, getting the details exactly right is not crucial. A simple approach, based on the generally false assumption that the data are generated by a random walk, is nearly optimal. We use the tools discussed here to document a new fact: There has been a significant shift in the money–inflation relationship before and after 1960.

2001 Lawrence R. Klein Lecture Estimating Distributions of Treatment Effects with an Application to the Returns to Schooling and Measurement of the Effects of Uncertainty on College Choice

Abstract: This article uses factor models to identify and estimate the distributions of counterfactuals. We extend LISREL frameworks to a dynamic treatment effect setting, extending matching to account for unobserved conditioning variables. Using these models, we can identify all pairwise and joint treatment effects. We apply these methods to a model of schooling and determine the intrinsic uncertainty facing agents at the time they make their decisions about enrollment in school. We go beyond the “Veil of Ignorance” in evaluating educational policies and determine who benefits and who loses from commonly proposed educational reforms.

“Economics and Psychology”? The Case of Hyperbolic Discounting*

Abstract: The article questions the methodology of “economics and psychology” in its focus on the case of hyperbolic discounting. Using some experimental results, I argue that the same type of evidence, which rejects the standard constant discount utility functions, can just as easily reject hyperbolic discounting as well. Furthermore, a decision-making procedure based on similarity relations better explains the observations and is more intuitive. The article concludes that combining “economics and psychology” requires opening the black box of decision makers instead of modifying functional forms.

Advertising, learning, and consumer choice in experience good markets: an empirical examination*

Abstract: This article empirically analyzes different effects of advertising in a nondurable, experience good market. A dynamic learning model of consumer behavior is presented in which I allow both “informative” effects of advertising and “prestige” or “image” effects of advertising. This learning model is estimated using consumer level panel data tracking grocery purchases and advertising exposures over time. Empirical results suggest that in this market, advertising's primary effect was that of informing consumers. The estimates are used to quantify the value of this information to consumers and evaluate the welfare implications of an alternative advertising regulatory regime.

On the welfare cost of economic fluctuations in developing countries

Abstract: Macroeconomic fluctuations are much stronger in developing countries than in the United States. Yet, while a large literature debates the welfare cost of economic fluctuations in the United States, it remains an open question how large that cost is in developing countries. Using several models, we provide such a measure. We find that the welfare cost of consumption volatility per se is far from trivial and averages a substantial multiple of the corresponding U.S. estimate. Moreover, in many poor countries, the welfare gain from eliminating volatility may in fact exceed the welfare gain from an additional percentage point of growth forever.

From Malthus to Modern Growth: Can Epidemics Explain the Three Regimes?*

Abstract: We model demographic and economic long-run development in a setting where mortality is endogenous and subject to epidemic shocks. The model replicates the full transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. Consistent with the historical facts, the economy also passes an intermediate post-Malthusian phase where growth rates of both population and per capita income increase simultaneously, as mortality rates fall and become less volatile. The escape from the Malthusian trap is the result of a series of mild epidemic shocks, making it inevitable at some stage, but its timing random. Calibrations show that it can differ by thousands of generations, absent differences in exogenous parameters.

Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints

Abstract: We study the infinite-horizon model of household portfolio choice under liquidity constraints and revisit the portfolio specialization puzzle. We show why the puzzle is robust to several model variations, and argue that positive correlation between earnings shocks and stock returns is unlikely to provide an empirically plausible resolution. We find that relatively small fixed costs for stock market entry are sufficient to deter stockholding because, for a plausible range of parameter values, households can achieve desired consumption smoothing with small or zero holdings of stocks. Such costs could arise from informational considerations, sign-up fees, and investor inertia.

Credit programs for the poor and the health status of children in rural bangladesh

Abstract: The impact of participation in group-based credit programs, by gender of participant, on the health status of children by gender in rural Bangladesh is investigated. These credit programs are well suited to studies of how genderspecific resources alter intra-household allocations because they induce differential participation by gender. Women’s credit is found to have a large and statistically significant impact on two of three measures of the healthiness of both boy and girl children. Credit provided to men has no statistically significant impact and the null hypothesis of equal credit effects by gender of participant is rejected. This article examines the effect of additional resources supplied to and controlled by women, as compared to men, on child health outcomes, by gender of child. The source of these additional resources is group-based credit programs for the poor in rural Bangladesh. These credit programs are well suited to studying how gender-specific resources alter intra-household allocations because they induce differential participation by gender through the requirement that only one adult member per household can participate in any micro-credit program. This article thus contributes to the growing literature in which joint family decisions are derived from the possibly divergent interests of husbands and wives. The empirical literature has suggested that a mother’s relative control over resources importantly alters the human capital of her children; specifically that children seem to be better off when their mothers control relatively more of their family’s resources. Some of this literature has used the relative earnings of mothers and fathers to indicate control over resources. The endogeneity of earnings makes any

Time-consistent optimal fiscal policy ∗

Abstract: This article studies the properties of optimal fiscal policy in a stochastic growth model when the government cannot commit itself beyond the next period’s capital income tax rate. We find that the results contrast markedly with those under full commitment. First, capital income tax rates are very high (65% on average versus close to zero on average under full commitment). Second, labor income taxes are rather low on average (about 12% versus a value of around 31% under full commitment). Finally, labor income taxes are quite volatile, whereas under full commitment their standard deviation is essentially zero.

The mercantilist index of trade policy

Abstract: We introduce an index of trade policy restrictiveness defined as the uniform tariff that maintains the same trade volume as a given tariff/quota structure. Our index overcomes the problems of the trade-weighted average tariff: It avoids substitution bias, correctly accounts for general equilibrium transfers, and takes import volume instead of welfare as benchmark. Empirical applications to international cross section and time-series comparisons of trade policy confirm our theoretical results: Trade-weighted average tariffs generally underestimate the true height of tariffs as measured by the trade-volume-equivalent index; this in turn always underestimates the welfare-equivalent index.

More on Marriage, Fertility, and the Distribution of Income*

Abstract: According to Pareto (1896), the distribution of income depends on “the nature of the people comprising a society, on the organization of the latter, and, also, in part, on chance.” In the model developed here the “nature of the people” is captured by attitudes toward marriage, divorce, fertility, and children. Singles search for mates in a marriage market. Married agents bargain about work, and the quantity and quality of children. They can divorce. Social policies, such as child support requirements, reflect the “organization of the (society).” Finally, “chance” is modeled by randomness in income, marriage opportunities, and marital bliss.

Monetary Policy Regimes and Beliefs

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of beliefs over monetary policy in propagating the effects of monetary policy shocks within the context of a dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium model. In this model, monetary policy periodically switches between low- and high-money-growth regimes.When individuals cannot observe the regime directly, they must draw inferences over regime type based on historical money growth rates.The authors show that for an empirically plausible money growth process, beliefs evolve slowly in the wake of a regime change.As a result, their model is able to capture some of the observed persistence of real and nominal variables following such a regime change.

Exchange rate pass-through and the welfare effects of the euro ∗

Abstract: This article explores the implications of the European single currency within a simple sticky price intertemporal model. We focus on the question of how the euro may change the sensitivity of consumer prices in Europe to exchangerate changes. Our central conjecture is that the acceptance of the euro will lead European prices to become more insulated from exchange-rate volatility. We find that this affects both the volatility and levels of macroeconomic aggregates in both the U.S. and Europe. We find that European welfare is enhanced, and the U.S. shares in Europe’s good fortune.

A welfare analysis of social security in a dynastic framework

Abstract: In this article, we study the welfare effects of unfunded social security in a general equilibrium model populated with overlapping generations of altruistic individuals that differ in lifetime expectancy and earnings ability. Contrary to previous research, our results indicate that steady-state welfare increases with social security for most households, although by very different amounts. This result is mainly due to two factors. First, the presence of two-sided altruism significantly mitigates the crowding out effect of unfunded social security. Second, ability shocks and uncertain lifetimes generate significant heterogeneity among households to yield different induced preferences for social security.

Distributional Effects of Public Education in an Economy with Public Pensions

Abstract: We study how the allocation of government expenditures between two major outlays—education and pay-as-you-go social security—affects human capital distribution in an economy with heterogeneous agents. We consider an overlapping generations economy where the government maintains both programs, and allocates tax revenues to finance them. In our model, human capital is one of the factors of production. It is itself produced as a combined result of public inputs and private inputs. Parents' decisions to invest time and material resources in education of their children are motivated by altruism, heterogeneous in its strength across the population, which leads to heterogeneity of incomes. We investigate the effect of an increase in public funding for education on the human capital distribution. We show that in this framework, contrary to some earlier results, increased spending on public education may lead to higher inequality. Our results depend crucially on the interaction of education funding with the social security budget and on the elasticity of substitution in the learning technology.

Centralization, Fiscal Federalism, and Private School Attendance

Abstract: A CGE model is used to analyze the impact of public school financing on private school attendance. The common perception that public school finance centralization will necessarily lead to greater private school attendance is not correct in such a model—even when that centralization involves an extreme equalization as in California. Furthermore, if centralization is less dramatic (as in most states), declines in private school attendance are even more pronounced. This weakens the speculation that low exit rates to private schools in centralizing states imply that general public school quality does not drop as a result of such centralization.

The Oecd Model Tax Treaty: Tax Competition And Two-Way Capital Flows*

Abstract: Model tax treaties do not require tax rate coordination, but do require that either credits or exemptions be applied to repatriated earnings. This contradicts recent models with a single capital exporter where deductions are most efficient. I incorporate the fact that capital flows are typically bilateral. With symmetric countries, credits by both is the unique and efficient treaty equilibrium. This equilibrium weakly dominates the nontreaty equilibrium. With asymmetric countries, the treaty need not offer improvements without tax harmonization. With harmonization, it is always possible to reach efficient capital allocations while increasing both countries' welfares only if neither uses deductions.

Factor accumulation and trade: dynamic comparative advantage with endogenous physical and human capital ∗

Abstract: This article develops a two-country endogenous growth model with accumulation of both physical and human capital. We establish the existence of two-country balanced growth equilibria with physical and human capital in which a static and dynamic version of the Heckscher‐Ohlin (HO) hypothesis hold true. We also show the existence of unbalanced growth equilibria in which the static and dynamic HO hypotheses can be violated. The multiplicity of paths with international trade emerge as a result of the intertemporal no-arbitrage condition when factor prices are equalized across countries.

The effect of statistical discrimination on black-white wage inequality: estimating a model with multiple equilibria ∗

Abstract: This article presents the structural estimation of the parameters of a statistical discrimination model. Although the model is capable of displaying multiple equilibria, an estimation strategy that identifies both the model parameters and the equilibrium selected by the economic agents is developed and empirically implemented. A comparison between the selected equilibria and the other potential equilibria reveals that the decline in wage inequality experienced in the U.S. economy cannot be attributed to changes in the equilibrium selection. Nonetheless, a counterfactual experiment shows that in a color-blind society blacks' wage would have been on average more than 20% higher.

Is there chaos in the world economy? : a nonparametric test using consistent standard errors

Abstract: A positive Lyapunov exponent is one practical deÞnition of chaos. We develop a formal test for chaos in a noisy system based on the consistent standard errors of the nonparametric Lyapunov exponent estimators. When our procedures are applied to international real output series, the hypothesis of the positive Lyapunov exponent is signiÞcantly rejected in many cases. One possible interpretation of this result is that the traditional exogenous models are better able to explain business cycle suctuations than is the chaotic endogenous approach. However, our results are subject to a number of caveats, in particular our results could have been insuenced by small sample bias, high noise level, incorrect Þltering, and long memory of the data.

Should Transfers To Poor Families Be Conditional On School Attendance? A Household Bargaining Perspective

Abstract: This article considers the welfare implications of transfers to poor families that are conditional on school attendance and other forms of investment in children's human capital. Family decisions are assumed to be the result of (generalized) Nash bargaining between the two parents. We show that, as long as bequests are zero, conditional transfers are better for children than unconditional transfers. The mother's welfare may also be improved by conditional transfers. Thus, conditioning transfers to bequest-constrained families have potentially desirable intergenerational and intragenerational welfare effects. Conditioning transfers to unconstrained families make every family member worse off.

Why so only 5.5% of Black Men Marry White Women?*

Abstract: Only 5.5% of black males married white females in 1990, and the family-income premium for intermarried black males was 7%. This article estimates the impact of the mating taboo, courting opportunities, and individual endowments on the black male marriage market. Results indicate that eliminating the mating taboo would raise the intermarriage rate from 5.5 to 64%, and do away with the intermarriage premium. Improving black males' endowments or allowing black males to meet white females as frequently as they do black females would not increase intermarriage.

Export Flexibility And Currency Hedging

Abstract: This article studies the behavior of an export-flexible firm under exchange rate uncertainty. We show that the separation theorem holds if selling exclusively in the domestic market is suboptimal even under the most unfavorable spot exchange rate. Otherwise, the firm's optimal output depends on its preferences and on the underlying uncertainty. We further show that the full-hedging theorem holds only when the firm always finds it optimal to sell its entire output in the foreign market. Otherwise, export flexibility introduces a convexity into the firm's foreign exchange risk exposure, which calls for the use of currency options for hedging purposes.

Multiple Equilibria and Minimum Wages in Labor Markets with Informational Frictions and Heterogeneous Production Technologies

Abstract: It is often argued that a mandatory minimum wage is binding only if the wage density displays a spike at it. In this article, we analyze a model with search frictions and heterogeneous production technologies, in which imposition of a minimum wage affects wages even though, after imposition, the lowest wage in the market exceeds the minimum wage. The model has multiple equilibria as a result of the fact that the reservation wage of the unemployed and the lowest production technology in use affect each other. Imposition of a minimum wage may improve social welfare.

Educational policy in a credit constrained economy with skill heterogeneity

Abstract: An overlapping-generations model where agents choose whether to become educated when young is presented. Education enhances productivity, but needs to be financed by borrowing. Because of the possibility of default, lenders may ration credit. We characterize the steady-state equilibrium with and without credit constraints and show that credit constraints are associated with lower education and a lower real interest rate. We then study the role of public policy in remedying the inefficiency which occurs with credit market imperfections and examine whether public education can improve on the constrained equilibrium.

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations When Participants are Risk Averse

Abstract: We model rotating savings and credit associations (Roscas) among risk-averse participants who experience privately observed income shocks. A random Rosca is not advantageous, whereas a bidding Rosca is if temporal risk aversion is less pronounced than static risk aversion. The payoff scheme of a bidding Rosca facilitates risk sharing in the presence of information asymmetries. The risk-sharing performance of a simple arrangement where a group of homogenous individuals runs several bidding Roscas simultaneously is as good as that of a linear risk-sharing contract, and is more enforceable because it carries a fixed rather than a variable contribution.

An Analysis of the Market for Taxicab Rides in New York City

Abstract: In the last few years, the city of New York has increased taxicab fares and relaxed a 59-year-old cap on the number of licenses. This article uses a dynamic equilibrium model of meeting frictions to quantify the impact of these policies on medallion prices and on the process that rules the meetings between passengers and taxicabs in New York City.

Local versus Global Assessment of Mobility

Abstract: Mobility indices are popular tools designed to quantify the extent of income changes by aggregating "local" distributional change into a "global" scalar according to some rule. For some mobility measures, this aggregation rule is only implicit in their standard definition. We derive an insightful approximation to the (statistical) aggregation rule for the important class of mobility indices introduced by Shorrocks (Journal of Economic Theory 19 (1978), 376–93) and further generalized by Maasoumi and Zandvakili (Economic Letters 22 (1986), 97–102), which enables us to characterize their normative properties. We also develop methods for estimation and inference. A substantive empirical contribution emerges from the comparison of mobility between the United States and Germany. Our methods reveal why income mobility is higher in Germany than in the United States: Higher German mobility in the bottom of the distribution is combined with an implicitly higher weighting by the mobility index at the bottom.

Optimal credit rationing in not-for-profit financial institutions*

Abstract: We examine the dynamic optimization problem for not-for-profit financial institutions (NFPs) that maximize consumer surplus, not profits. We characterize the optimal dynamic policy and find that it involves credit rationing. Interest rates set by mature NFPs will typically be more favorable to customers than market rates, as any surplus is distributed in the form of interest rate subsidies, with credit rationing being required to prevent these subsidies from distorting loan volumes from their optimal levels. Rationing overcomes a fundamental problem in NFPs; it allows them to distribute the surplus without distorting the volume of activity from the efficient level.