An approach to fuzzy hypothesis testing

In this paper an approach is presented how to test fuzzily formulated hypotheses with crisp data. The quantitiesα andβ, the probabilities of the errors of type I and of type II, are suitably generalized and the concept of a best test is introduced. Within the framework of a one-parameter exponential distribution family the search for a best test is considerably reduced. Furthermore, it is shown under very weak conditions thatα andβ can simultaneously be diminished by increasing the sample size even in the case of testingH ₀ against the omnibus alternativeH ₁: notH ₀, a result completely different from the case of crisp setsH ₀ andH ₁: notH ₀.     

Productivity differences in multiple output industries: An empirical application to electricity distribution

Given that electricity distribution is undertaken via a network, it is expected that costs of production are affected both by the nature of the network and the volume of physical output distributed via the network. This two-dimensional concept of firm size, that is involving network size (number of customers) and the level of physical output (kWh), also corresponds to the distinction between productivity measures of returns to density and returns to scale.This approach has been used to specify a restricted multioutput cost function and to estimate this function for the Norwegian electricity distribution industry through the use of a flexible functional form (translog). The results indicate that no economies of scale are present in the industry even for small plants when measured correctly, but that economics of density are present.     

An application of organizational input–output analysis to hospital management

The main components of an acute-care hospital and the relationships among them are used to construct an organizational input–output model similar to those based on the interdependence among industries in an economy. The basic model makes it possible to forecast the personnel needed by each component in order to provide the services expected from it by the external environment and by the other hospital departments. Extensions of the basic model can be applied to health care organizations in general, used to analyze the implications of different organizational reforms or extended to include physical, financial, and other resources. The methods presented and the results obtained are of particular interest to managers of health care organizations, managers in general, and researchers in the theory of organization.     

Measuring and testing Granger causality over the spectrum: An application to European production expectation surveys

Decomposing Granger causality over the spectrum allows us to disentangle potentially different Granger causality relationships over different frequencies. This may yield new and complementary insights compared to traditional versions of Granger causality. In this paper, we compare two existing approaches in the frequency domain, proposed originally by Pierce [Pierce, D. A. (1979). R-squared measures for time series. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 74, 901–910] and Geweke [Geweke, J. (1982). Measurement of linear dependence and feedback between multiple time series. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 77, 304–324], and introduce a new testing procedure for the Pierce spectral Granger causality measure. To provide insights into the relative performance of this test, we study its power properties by means of Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, we apply the methodology in the context of the predictive value of the European production expectation surveys. This predictive content is found to vary widely with the frequency considered, illustrating the usefulness of not restricting oneself to a single overall test statistic.     

Export specialization and economic growth around the world

This paper empirically investigates the extent to which technological characteristics in exports affect the patterns of trade-led economic growth across countries. Data of the Balassa index, which captures a country's revealed comparative advantage, are obtained for industries classified by technological intensity. Regression results based on a sample of 71 countries since 1970 suggest that economies have tended to grow more rapidly when they have increasingly specialized in exporting high-technology as opposed to traditional or low-technology goods. The findings are robust to the presence of various control variables as well as the consideration of parameter heterogeneity and in the endogeneity of export structures.     

Stress testing techniques and value-at-risk measures: A unified approach

We investigate a methodology to set up consistent scenarios for stress testing analysis in financial risk control and management. The method, based on the Black and Litterman bayesian approach to portfolio optimization, enables to mix historic and implied or private information, accounting for the co-movement among the markets. By tuning the mean values chosen for the scenarios and the degree of precision attached to them we are able to devise a whole range of mean loss and maximum probable loss, or Value-at-Risk measures. In particular, by setting a very precise scenario the mean and maximum probable loss converge toward similar values, while for very imprecise scenarios the mean loss figure is found to converge to zero, and the maximum probable loss collapses to the standard Value-at-Risk figure computed using historical information. As for options, we show that tuning the precision of the scenarios allows for the effects of changes in volatility on the option value, under each different scenarios. Finally, for more complex positions, such as those involving credit risk exposures, or more generally exposures to different markets, we suggest a tree methodology to report the scenarios and to pinpoint the key sources of risk.     

Cyclical output,cyclical unemployment,and Okun's coefficient: A new approach

Estimates of Okun's coefficient are obtained using new estimates of cyclical GNP and cyclical unemployment rates for the post-war USA. Empirical estimates of the coefficient are near —0.25, somewhat smaller in magnitude than other recent estimates obtained applying similar econometric techniques to different estimates of cyclical output and unemployment. Tests fail to reject the hypothesis of parameter stability across an hypothesized break between the third and fourth quarters of 1973, suggesting similar relationships between cyclical output and unemployment both before and after the supply shocks of the 1970s.     

Forecasting bank failures and stress testing: A machine learning approach

This paper presents a forecasting model of bank failures based on machine-learning. The proposed methodology defines a linear decision boundary that separates the solvent banks from those that failed. This setup generates a novel alternative stress-testing tool. Our sample of 1443 U.S. banks includes all 481 banks that failed during the period 2007–2013. The set of explanatory variables is selected using a two-step feature selection procedure. The selected variables were then fed to a support vector machines forecasting model, through a training–testing learning process. The model exhibits a 99.22% overall forecasting accuracy and outperforms the well-established Ohlson’s score.     

Assessing output and productivity growth in the banking industry

This paper assesses the evolution of output and productivity in the Greek banking industry for the period 1990–2006. Three main categories of bank output were estimated based on modern theoretical approaches, while for the estimation of output and productivity (partial and total factor) we relied on the index number method (Tornqvist index). We also considered the effect of labor quality on banks’ productivity and the contribution of total factor productivity to bank output growth. Bank output and labor productivity outpaced considerably the respective GDP growth and labor productivity of the Greek economy during the period under examination. Capital and total factor productivity have also improved remarkably mainly since 1999, due to the structural changes that took place within the industry, capital (mainly IT) investments and improvement in the quality of human capital.     

An analysis of the bounds for the Gini coefficient

The bounds on the Gini coefficient obtained by Gastwirth for the case of grouped data are considered. While the population bounds will always include the value of the population Gini coefficient and the estimated bounds will always include a suitably chosen estimate of the Gini coefficient, estimated bounds need not include the value of the population Gini coefficient.The distributions of the estimators of the bounds are considered and it is shown that a failure to take account of sampling variation can lead to very misleading results. In fact, increasing the number of income groups used tends to decrease the difference between the bounds, but the relative frequency with which the estimated bounds includes the population Gini coefficient decreases. The relationship between sample size, the nature of income groups and estimator precision is considered.     

热工仪表输出信号的测试新方法

文章针对电测试验专业人员在进行热工仪表校验时,校验仪表输出信号过程中可能会出现电压、电流值计算错误,拆接二次线后造成误接线,而且工作量大、耗时等问题进行了论述,并提出了新的方法。     

The effects of age structure on economic growth: An application of probabilistic forecasting to India

During recent years there has been an increasing awareness of the explanatory power of population age structure variables in economic growth regressions. We estimate a new cross-country regression model of the effects of age structure change on economic growth. We use the new model and recent probabilistic demographic forecasts for India to derive the uncertainty of predicted economic growth rates caused by the uncertainty in demographic developments.     

Money stock targeting and money supply: An intertemporal optimization approach (with an application to Canada)

We propose a model of the short-term behaviour of the monetary authorities of a small open economy that is willing to stabilize, to some extent, its bilateral exchange rate vis-à-vis a dominant partner. The optimal money supply strategy is derived using intertemporal optimization arguments, in a rational expectations environment, The model is formulated so as to avoid the time inconsistency problem stressed by Kydland and Prescott (1977). It allows econometric estimation of the optimal money supply rule as well as of the parameters of the intertemporal utility function, and of the function that defines the intermediate target money stock. The model is successfully estimated on Canadian quarterly data, using maximum-likelihood techniques.     

Multifrequency jump-diffusions: An equilibrium approach

This paper proposes that equilibrium valuation is a powerful method to generate endogenous jumps in asset prices. We specify an economy with continuous consumption and dividend paths, in which endogenous price jumps originate from the market impact of regime-switches in the drifts and volatilities of fundamentals. We parsimoniously incorporate regimes of heterogeneous durations and verify that the persistence of a shock endogenously increases the magnitude of the induced price jump. As the number of frequencies driving fundamentals goes to infinity, the price process converges to a novel stochastic process, which we call a multifractal jump-diffusion.     

Optimal administrative geographies: An algorithmic approach

Centrally planned Beveridge healthcare systems typically rely heavily on local or regional “health authorities” as responsible organisations for the care of geographically defined populations. The frequency of reorganisations in the English NHS suggests that there is no compelling unitary definition of what constitutes a good healthcare geography. In this paper we propose a set of desirable objectives for an administrative healthcare geography, specifically: geographical compactness, co-extensiveness with current local authorities and size and population homogeneity, and we show how these might be operationally measured. Based on these objectives, we represent the problem of how to partition a territory into health authorities as a multi-objective optimisation problem. We use a state-of-the-art multi-objective genetic algorithm customised for the needs of our study to partition the territory of the East England into 14 Primary Care Trusts and 50 GP consortia and study the tradeoffs between objectives which this reveals.     

中国劳务输出对进出口贸易影响的实证分析

本文采用修正的贸易引力模型,应用中国与175个国家(地区)1995~2004年的面板数据,就中国劳务输出对进出口贸易的影响进行实证分析。对样本总体的回归结果表明,我国对外劳务输出与出口之间存在互补关系,劳务输出能够带动出口增加;而劳务输出对进口没有明显影响,二者之间呈现不显著的替代关系。对样本国家(地区)按区域和收入分组的回归结果与对样本总体的回归结果基本一致:我国对大多数国家(地区)的劳务输出与出口之间存在正相关关系,特别是外派劳务最为集中的东亚和南亚,劳务输出对出口有着明显的拉动作用;在进口方面,除拉美和加勒比海国家外,对其余各组国家(地区)的劳务输出与进口之间均为负相关关系,而这种关系通常不显著。     

Foreign direct investment, trade openness and economic growth in pakistan and turkey: an investigation using bounds test

In the literature empirical evidences regarding export-led growth (ELG), FDI-led exports, and growth-driven exports (GDE) hypotheses have been mixed and inconclusive. This paper uses the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) model (Pesaran and Shin, Econometrics and Economic Theory in the 20th Century: The Ragnar Frisch Centennial Symposium, 1990) and tests the existence of long run equilibrium relationship between the determinants of growth during the period 1975?C2004 for Pakistan and Turkey. The results indicate that in the short run there is bi-directional causal relationship between trade openness and exports for Pakistan and FDI and exports relationship for Turkey. The long run relationship results support the growth-driven exports hypothesis for Turkey and openness-growth nexus in Pakistan.     

A dual measure of correlation between the Solow residual and output growth

In this paper, we measure U.S. technology shocks by implementing a dual approach, which is based on price data instead of aggregate quantity data. By doing so, we find the relative volatility of technology shocks and the correlation between output fluctuation and technology shocks to be much smaller than those revealed in most real-business-cycle (RBC) studies. Our results support the findings of Burside et al. (Eur Econ Rev 40:861–869, 1996), who showed that the correlation between technology shocks and output is exaggerated in the RBC literature. This suggests that one should examine other sources of fluctuations for a better understanding of the business cycle phenomena.     

Innovation,finance, and economic growth: an agent-based approach

This paper extends the endogenous growth agent-based model in Fagiolo and Dosi (Struct Change Econ Dyn 14(3):237–273, 2003) to study the finance–growth nexus. We explore industries where firms produce a homogeneous good using existing technologies, perform R&D activities to introduce new techniques, and imitate the most productive practices. Unlike the original model, we assume that both exploration and imitation require resources provided by banks, which pool agent savings and finance new projects via loans. We find that banking activity has a positive impact on growth. However, excessive financialization can hamper growth. Indeed, we find a significant and robust inverted U-shaped relation between financial depth and growth. Overall, our results stress the fundamental (and still poorly understood) role played by innovation in the finance–growth nexus.