Spatial Dependence and House Price Index Construction

Accurate estimation of prevailing metropolitan housing prices is important for both business and research investigations of housing and mortgage markets. This is typically done by constructing quality-adjusted house price indices from hedonic price regressions for given metropolitan areas. A major limitation of currently available indices is their insensitivity to the geographic location of dwellings within the metropolitan area. Indices are constructed based on models that do not incorporate the underlying spatial structure in housing data sets. In this article, we argue that spatial structure, especially spatial dependence latent in housing data sets, will affect the precision and accuracy of resulting price estimates. We illustrate the importance of spatial dependence in both the specification and estimation of hedonic price models. Assessments are made on the importance of spatial dependence both on parameter estimates and on the accuracy of resulting indices.     

Information and conspiracy in sealed bid auctions

This paper examines the allocative properties of the sealed bid institution when different aspects of the available information to bidders are considered. Specifically, we examine: (a) the effect on price determination in repeated sealed bid auctions of post auction revelation of losing bids, and (b) the effect on price determination when conspiratorial discussions are allowed.     

The Effects of Regional Economic Communities on Industrialization: The Case of COMESA

This paper seeks to establish the contribution of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) programmes in promoting industrialization. It further seeks to establish the link between industrialization and productivity. The paper uses a gravity model to estimate a cross‐sectional time‐series (panel) dataset for the period 2001–2015. The results indicate that membership to COMESA has created large markets and promoted industrialization among member states. However, results also confirm that COMESA member states still heavily trade in industrial intermediates with non‐members. The study further reveals that the share of foreign total factor productivity (TFP) to COMESA's TFP are weaker than expected, which suggests non‐convergence to international knowledge spillovers. The study concludes that COMESA programmes have positively affected industrialization. We therefore recommend that COMESA should continue implementing strategies, policies and programmes that promote industrialization and technology transfer.     

The contribution of millennium development goals towards improvement in major development indicators, 1990–2015

This study explores the contribution of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) towards improvement in seven major development indicators during 1990-2015. The improvement in each indicator is decomposed into two parts. The first is the improvement that is likely to have occurred without the MDGs and is calculated by extrapolating to the entire period 1990-2015 the pre-MDG trend of 1990-2000. The second part is the improvement that may be attributed to the MDGs and is calculated as the actual improvement during 1990-2015 minus the part based on pre-MDG factors. The contributions are estimated for the world and six geographical regions. Apart from the huge diversity across the indicators and the regions, the exercise indicates two main points. First, MDGs did make a positive contribution to the improvement in almost all cases and it is not true that the MDGs contributed little. Second, however, the improvement attributable to the pre-MDG factors dominates contribution of the MDGs. Relative to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the study indicates that attainment of the SDG targets for access to safe water and under-5 mortality at the global level appears likely, but attainment of the targets for poverty rate, maternal mortality, and access to sanitation seems unlikely.

Abbreviation EAP: East Asia & Pacific; ECA: Europe & Central Asia; LAC: Latin America & Caribbean; MENA: Middle East & North Africa; SA: South Asia; SSA: Sub-Saharan Africa; ICP: International Comparison Program; MDGs: Millennium Development Goals; SDGs: Sustainable Development Goals; UN: United Nations; UNICEF: United Nations Children’s Fund; WDI: World Development Indicators     

Do Borrowing Constraints Change U.S. Homeownership Rates?

This study has two main objectives. First, we estimate various alternative specifications of the tenure choice model with borrowing constraint variables, originally put forth by Linneman and Wachter, using a more recent sample of the Survey of Consumer Finance. Second, we simulate effects of policy changes governing constraints and changes in mortgage interest rates, both on households' owning decisions and on the aggregate homeownership rate. While the impact of constraints has been demonstrated in previous studies, our research provides the first microsimulation estimates of the impact for aggregate homeownership rates for the entire U.S. population.     

A general model of insurance under adverse selection

Summary. This paper considers optimal insurance schemes in a principal-agent multi-dimensional environment in which two types of risk averse agents differ in both risk and attitude to risk. Risk corresponds to any pair of distribution functions (not necessarily ordered by any of the usual dominance relations) and attitudes to risk are represented by any pair of non-decreasing and concave utility functions (not necessarily ordered by risk aversion). Results obtained in one-dimensional models that considered these effects separately and under more restricted conditions, are preserved in the more general set-up, but some of the questions we study can only be posed in the more general framework. The main results obtained for optimal insurance schemes are: (i) Insurance schemes preserve the order of certainty equivalents; consequently, the latter constitute a one-dimensional representation of types. (ii) Agents with the lower certainty equivalent are assigned full insurance. Partial insurance assigned to the others may entail randomization. (iii) Partially insured positions are an increasing function of the ratios of the probabilities that the two types assign to the uninsured positions. Most of these properties are preserved when, due to competition or other reasons, the insured certainty equivalents can not be set below pre-determined levels. Received: January 13, 1998; revised version: October 10, 1998     

Institutional cross-ownership,heterogeneous incentives,and negative premium mergers

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Cross-owners, investors who have stakes in both the acquiring and target firms, are likely to focus on the total portfolio wealth effects from...     

Partnership duration and concurrent partnering: implications for models of HIV prevalence

Researchers and policy makers have argued that long-duration concurrent relationships promote the spread of HIV. The concurrency hypothesis proposes that concurrent partnering, particularly as manifested in formal and informal polygyny, is a primary contributor to the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. We investigate claims that agent-based models of concurrent partnering support this hypothesis. Specifically, we explore how assumptions about the duration and network structure of sexual partnerships affect the results of agent-based models of HIV propagation. We offer new support for the contention that long-duration concurrent partnering can be protective against HIV transmission rather than promoting it. Additionally, we argue that the focus on concurrency has misdirected attention away from the key role of exclusivity.

     

Idolizing “My Love from the Star”: Idol attachment and fanaticism of luxury brands

This study examines the influence of idol attachment and consumer fanaticism on consumers’ attitude toward celebrity product placement of luxury fashion brands in Korean television dramas. A 2 × 2 research design was used to examine two different product categories (fashion apparel vs. fashion accessories) and two celebrities (Kim Soo Hyun vs. Jun Ji‐Hyun). Respondents were screened and limited to those who were aware of the Korean television drama My Love from the Star. The findings show that the gender of celebrity and the category of product placement have differential impacts on viewers or fans’ attitudes and intention toward the product placement.