Finite lifetimes,long-term debt and the fiscal limit

The U.S. faces exponentially rising entitlement obligations. I introduce a fiscal limit—a point where higher taxes are no longer a feasible financing mechanism—into a Perpetual Youth model to examine how intergenerational redistributions of wealth, the average duration of government debt, and entitlement reform impact the consequences of explosive government transfers. Three key findings emerge: (1) Growing government transfers cause more severe and more persistent stagflation than in representative agent models that do not capture intergenerational transfers of wealth; (2) A longer average duration of government debt pushes the financing of government liabilities into the future and reduces the short-run impacts of explosive transfers; (3) The time it takes the economy to rebound from a period of growing transfers increases exponentially with the number of years it takes to pass entitlement reform.     

Pricing a rural development program: uncertainty,indifference, and protest behaviors

This article presents an econometric approach to modeling uncertainty, unwillingness to pay, and protest behavior in contingent valuation studies. For that purpose, a mixture model with sample selection is developed for a multiple‐bounded uncertainty elicitation format. The proposed theoretical framework is applied to evaluate the social welfare impact of implementing a sustainable rural development program. Results show that a “naive” analytical approach that excludes protesters from the analysis would result in significantly higher willingness to pay estimates for those individuals who favor the implementation of the program and agree to reveal their true reservation prices.     

GIS as a tool for selection of sample areas in a travel behaviour survey

Whilst Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are now used more commonly in transport research and modelling, GIS techniques were used in this study to select similar sample areas (in terms of geography and census attributes) for data collection. For this purpose, a GIS mapping system for Tyne and Wear, UK, was built. The system included topographic maps of the area, boundary maps of Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA), and aggregated census statistics datasets for LSOAs. Criteria relating to census attributes and the nature of transport were employed to identify ‘hotspots’ by GIS enquiry to provide suitably matching areas, which then formed the basis of the sampling frame.The research project was concerned with commuters’ travel choices and so the study needed to identify commuters. In this case-study context, it is not possible to select fully homogeneous areas, so the GIS ‘hotspots’ approach allowed the identification of areas where there were a high concentration of commuters with multiple alternatives for travel to work. A pilot study showed that the GIS origin-based approach was good in collecting a balanced sample, as compared to an employment-based destination survey. This paper explores the benefits and costs of these origin- and destination-based approaches. In the origin-based home sample, households with paper-based surveys were targeted after identification by GIS. This origin approach requires more data preparation compared to the alternative of an employer-based, destination-based sample that could use online survey methodologies.The paper concludes by identifying GIS as an important tool in selecting a sample area for data collection using multiple criteria, but argues that plans for data collection need to be flexibly constructed to overcome unexpected challenges. Although this paper focuses on a transport research case study, the methodology presented can be applied to survey design and selection of sample areas in other disciplines.     

经济欠发达地区民间借贷问题研究——基于桂林的样本数据

随着社会主义市场经济的发展,民间借贷现象逐渐被重视,而经济欠发达地区的民间借贷行为由于其鲜明的特点和运行机理尤其引人关注。本文以桂林辖区民间借贷为样本,在分析民间借贷现状、特征的基础上,试图探讨经济欠发达地区民间借贷的经济政策效应及监测体系,以达到为货币政策制定和执行提供参考的目的。     

HEDONIC PRICE INDEXES FOR RESIDENTIAL HOUSING: A SURVEY,EVALUATION AND TAXONOMY

Every house is different. It is important that house price indexes take account of these quality differences. Hedonic methods which express house prices as a function of a vector of characteristics (such as number of bedrooms and bathrooms, land area and location) are particularly useful for this purpose. I consider here some developments in the hedonic methodology, as it is applied in a housing context, that have occurred in the last three decades. A number of hedonic house price indexes are now available. However, it is often difficult to see how these indexes relate to each other. For this reason I attempt to impose some structure on the literature by developing a taxonomy of hedonic indexes, and then show how existing indexes fit into this taxonomy. Also discussed are some promising areas for future research in the hedonic field. In particular, greater use needs to be made of spatial econometric and nonparametric methods to exploit the increased availability of geospatial data. The main criticisms of the hedonic approach are evaluated and compared with those of the repeat‐sales and stratified median methods. The overall conclusion is that the advantages of the hedonic approach outweigh its disadvantages.     

征信体系的作用与效率——基于信息不对称随机有限重复博弈的分析

征信体系的意义可以用重复博弈理论来加以解释.本文建立了一个信息不对称随机有限重复信用博弈模型,证明如果存在征信体系实现的信息共享机制,那么不论借款者的类型是什么,诚实守信是可以作为序列均衡的结果在有限重复博弈的绝大多数时期中出现的.如果不存在信息共享机制,信贷市场有可能消失,即便引入资产抵押,信贷市场仍是不完全的.基于上述序列均衡分析,本文进一步阐释了全面征信、法律保障、市场结构对征信体系效率运行的重要性.就发展中国家而言,成立中性、独立、信息全面的国家信用局和鼓励民营信用公司积极竞争,完善义务征信的法律体系是较为理想和可行的选择     

Estimating panel data models in the presence of endogeneity and selection

We consider estimation of panel data models with sample selection when the equation of interest contains endogenous explanatory variables as well as unobserved heterogeneity. Assuming that appropriate instruments are available, we propose several tests for selection bias and two estimation procedures that correct for selection in the presence of endogenous regressors. The tests are based on the fixed effects two-stage least squares estimator, thereby permitting arbitrary correlation between unobserved heterogeneity and explanatory variables. The first correction procedure is parametric and is valid under the assumption that the errors in the selection equation are normally distributed. The second procedure estimates the model parameters semiparametrically using series estimators. In the proposed testing and correction procedures, the error terms may be heterogeneously distributed and serially dependent in both selection and primary equations. Because these methods allow for a rather flexible structure of the error variance and do not impose any nonstandard assumptions on the conditional distributions of explanatory variables, they provide a useful alternative to the existing approaches presented in the literature.     

The impact of auctions on residential property prices

This study assesses whether the sale method in residential real estate markets – auction versus private treaty – is a determinant of sale price. Utilising a larger and richer dataset than previous research, we test for a price effect in auction sales in Sydney and Christchurch. When self‐selection biases are corrected for, using two‐stage hedonic regression analysis and a matched sampling procedure, we find no significant difference between prices of properties sold at auction to those sold by private treaty. This conflicts with the conclusions of previous research in the Australian and New Zealand housing markets, which have documented a price premium associated with auction sales.