Household Access to Mortgages in the UK

We employ the propensity score matching approach to investigate household access to mortgages in the UK using information on 29,732 households between 2003 and 2010. We find that, on average, the probability of obtaining a mortgage is similar for White and Non-White households. However, we find that Black households with low incomes are less likely to have mortgages compared to White households with similar characteristics. Asian households, in contrast, do not seem to have a lower probability of having a mortgage.     

2010年美国创意公司50强

科技永远是第一生产力，在一个不创新毋宁死的激情年代里，没有什么比永无止境的技术创意更让人蠢蠢欲动。     

Cross-section of option returns and volatility

We study the cross-section of stock option returns by sorting stocks on the difference between historical realized volatility and at-the-money implied volatility. We find that a zero-cost trading strategy that is long (short) in the portfolio with a large positive (negative) difference between these two volatility measures produces an economically and statistically significant average monthly return. The results are robust to different market conditions, to stock risks-characteristics, to various industry groupings, to option liquidity characteristics, and are not explained by usual risk factor models.     

Testing for pre‐committed quantities of Australian meat demand

Pre‐committed consumption represents the portion of demand that is determined by non‐price and non‐income factors. This study uses quarterly data to estimate a Generalised Almost Ideal Demand System (GAIDS) to test for the existence of pre‐committed meat consumption in Australia. Two specifications are estimated to evaluate the impact of seasonal and time trend factors on pre‐committed demand. Evidence is found for the existence of pre‐committed chicken consumption when jointly estimated with seasonal and time trend factors. Results support improved demand modelling of Australian meat consumption using the GAIDS and provide insights into how Australian meat demand is affected by price, expenditures, pre‐committed consumption, seasonality, and trends.     

Bayesian inference and prediction in the single server Markovian queue

The use of stochastic models and performance measures for the analysis of real life queuing scenarios are based on the fundamental premise that parameters values are known. This is a rarity since more often than not, parameters are usually unknown and require to be estimated. This paper presents techniques for the same from Bayesian perspective. The queue we intend to deal with is the M/M/1 queuing model. Several closed form expressions on posterior inference and prediction are presented which can be readily implemented using standard spreadsheet tools. Previous work in this direction resulted in non-existence of posterior moments. A way out is suggested. Interval estimates and tests of hypothesis on performance measures are also presented.     

On the dynamics of profit-led and wage-led growth

This paper examines how variable output and profit share jointlydetermine investment and saving, while the difference betweeninvestment and saving drives the changes in output and profitshare. Analysis of the resulting pair of differential equationsyields novel implications for the multiplier process. In thismore general framework a number of separate strands of the Keynesian-inspiredliterature can be understood. In particular, the model incorporatesboth forced saving and profit squeeze to analyse the stabilityof the dynamical system, and brings out the complex relationbetween in and out-of-equilibrium profit-led and wage-led regimes.     

Family Control of Firms and Industries

We test what explains family control of firms and industries and find that the explanation is largely contingent on the identity of families and individual blockholders. Founders and their families are more likely to retain control when doing so gives the firm a competitive advantage, thereby benefiting all shareholders. In contrast, nonfounding families and individual blockholders are more likely to retain control when they can appropriate private benefits of control. Families are more likely to maintain control when the efficient scale is small, the need to monitor employees is high, investment horizons are long, and the firm has dual-class stock.     

Trade Policy and Antitrust: Do Consumers Matter to Legislators?

We provide one of the first efforts to measure the importance of consumer preferences in legislators' trade policy decisions by estimating the degree to which the level of antitrust enforcement in the legislator's state impacts his or her vote on free trade agreements. To the extent that antitrust and trade liberalization are both viewed as pro‐consumer in nature, we would expect to see a positive relationship between antitrust enforcement in their legislative district and Congressional votes in support of trade liberalization. We find evidence suggesting that consumer preferences do play a role in legislative decisions on trade policy.     

Cross-border production sharing and exchange-rate sensitivity of Mexico's trade balance

Increasing patterns of international trade occur in the form of cross-border production sharing – the dispersion of separate blocks of an integrated production process across different nations. In the case of ‘standard’ or ‘ordinary’ trade, imports are destined for use in the importing country, and exports are largely produced within the country. However, with production sharing, imported parts and components are destined for inclusion in the country's exports. A depreciation of a nation's currency raises its exports. At the same time, imported components become more expensive, which partly offsets the expansionary effect of the depreciation on exports. Using a simple theoretical framework, this paper shows that production networks lower the sensitivity of a country's trade balance to changes in exchange rates. The empirical examination finds Mexico's Maquiladora trade balance to be unresponsive to changes in both, its real effective as well as its real peso-dollar rates, while that for non-Maquiladora category is significantly responsive, in confirmation with the theorized hypothesis.     

R&D and Technological Learning in Indian Industry: Econometric Estimation of the Research Production Function

Estimation of research production functions has produced rich and useful results for developed countries in the past. This paper makes a pioneering attempt to estimate the same in the context of a less-developed country (LDC) (India). The objective is to examine the process of technology generation and learning in Indian industry. The existing literature recognizes two principal characteristics of technological activities in LDCs. First, their R&D effort is geared towards "minor" as opposed to "major" innovations. Second, technological learning constitutes an integral part of their research thrust. This paper attempts to capture these characteristics in a rigorous econometric framework by estimating a comprehensive research production function incorporating the role of learning. We use Indian firm-level in-house R&D data for two sectors: pharmaceuticals and electronics. Our study not only captures the role of learning in determining research effort and research output, but also re-examines some of the existing hypotheses relating to the effects of firm size, technology import and ownership. We find that the two sectors display two distinct learning trajectories, but in both cases learning proves to be crucially important in technology generation.