The behaviour of the US consumer price index 1913–2003: a study of seasonality in the monthly US CPI

This article analyses the seasonality in the monthly consumer price index (CPI) over the period January 1913 to December 2003. We examine three types of month effects: if the mean of monthly CPI changes of the entire data set, and of a given month were significantly different from zero; if the mean of monthly CPI changes of a given month was different from the mean of the other months; and if the variance of the monthly CPI changes for a given month was different from the variance of the other months. The mean of monthly CPI changes for the entire data set (0.27%) was found to be significantly greater than zero. The means of monthly changes show a downward trend from September to December. When the data are sliced into three sub-periods, we find an increasing trend in the means and medians of monthly changes but a decreasing trend in the SDs of the monthly changes. The mean of monthly CPI changes during the republican presidencies (0.15%) was significantly lower than during the democratic presidencies (0.38%).     

Segmentation of consumer markets in the US: What do intercity price differences tell us?

We quantify the magnitude of market segmentation in US consumer market and explore the underlying factors behind this segmentation, using a quarterly panel of retail prices for 45 products in 48 US cities from 1985 to 2009. The extent of market segmentation is estimated using city‐pair price differences within the framework of both linear autoregressive (AR) and nonlinear threshold autoregressive (TAR) models. We find that the magnitude of market segmentation varies from one product to another, but even more across city pairs in each product. Contrary to a widespread perception, market segmentation within the US is not necessarily larger for non‐tradable services compared to tradable goods. We identify potential drivers of market segmentation by relating the cross‐city and cross‐product variations of market segmentation to location‐specific and product‐specific characteristics—distance, relative city sizes, differences in wage and rent, type of product and proximity to marketplace. Distance, which captures more than transport costs, turns out to be the most salient factor even after controlling for a range of other potential factors. The effect of distance, however, varies substantially across products, with perishable products and locally produced products showing larger distance effect on market segmentation. We find that the magnitude of market segmentation has been somewhat stable during the sample period, but intercity price differences have become more sensitive to distance over time in many products under study.     

Forecasting US real house price returns over 1831–2013: evidence from copula models

Given the existence of nonnormality and nonlinearity in the data generating process of real house price returns over the period of 1831–2013, this article compares the ability of various univariate copula models, relative to standard benchmarks (naive and autoregressive models) in forecasting real US house price over the annual out-of-sample period of 1874–2013, based on an in-sample of 1831–1873. Overall, our results provide overwhelming evidence in favour of the copula models (Normal, Student’s t, Clayton, Frank, Gumbel, Joe and Ali-Mikhail-Huq) relative to linear benchmarks, and especially for the Student’s t-copula, which outperforms all other models both in terms of in-sample and out-of-sample predictability results. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for nonnormality and nonlinearity in the data generating process of real house price returns for the US economy for nearly two centuries of data.     

Forecasting with leading indicators: Does the new index lead?

There are very few economic variables that capture as much public attention as the Composite Index of Leading Indicators (CLI). Designed as an early warning system for signaling recessions and recoveries in business cycles, CLI now has significant influence over the expectations of decision makers and market participants. Since its inception in 1938, the index has undergone many revisions, the last of which took effect in March 1989. In this study we evaluate the new index. A number of filters, including the Bayesian sequential probability recursion and the rule of three consecutive declines in CLI, are used to evaluate the information content of CLI in forecasting the turning points in the economy. We also report the result of our forecasting experiment to gauge the marginal value of the new index to improve forecasts of variables such as the unemployment rate, index of industrial production, GNP, sales, profit, consumption and housing starts.     

Analysts herding: when does sentiment matter?

Herding among analysts emerges when analysts give priority to their peers’ opinions instead of their own beliefs or information. Some circumstances may enhance or restrain this type of behaviour. We postulate that market sentiment is one of them. This article analyses the effect that investor sentiment may have on analysts’ herding behaviour in the U.K. Our results suggest that ‘easy situations’ such as analysing easy-to-value securities and releasing optimistic information at times of high market sentiment clearly reduce herding practices, whereas herding clearly increases in difficult situations when analysts have to release negative information at moments of high investor sentiment.     

Pairs trading: does volatility timing matter?

Pairs trading is a dollar-neutral trading strategy. Using the components of two major stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Nikkei 225, this article deals with the performance of a pairs trading system based on various pairs selection methods (distance, stationarity, cointegration) over a 10-year period. On both markets, using a classical framework, cointegration appears superior and effective. On the U.S. market and also in Japan to a lower extent, pairs trading strategies exhibited an impressive performance during the 2008 financial crisis. Bearish periods are associated with a high level of the VIX index: the ‘investor fear gauge’. Using a modified trading system, this article examines the link between pairs trading performance and volatility/VIX timing. It is shown that for the best selection technique (cointegration), timing volatility has no economic value in a pairs trading context.     

Scholastic just price versus current market price: is it merely a matter of labelling?

Abstract

From an analytical point of view, some aspects of Just Price theory, probably the most famous and lasting scholastic concept, remain controversial: the cost-of-production versus the subjective-utility theory of value is a main controversy as well as the question of whether the natural just price is conceptually the same as the current market price. Strictly speaking, just price isconceptually the same as the current market price. Of concern is whether the meaning behind the label is the same in both scholastic and liberal traditions. There are different interpretations among scholars. One is that the just price is merely the current market price, and common estimation plays the same role as market forces in a competitive context. Another group states that the just price is quite different from the market price; the fundamental reason is that the ethical framework of the scholastic paradigm sets a corpus of principles that greatly differs from the neoclassical homo economicus. Is it possible to speak of a collaborative market price (scholastic tradition) and competitive market price (liberal tradition)? This article tries to dig into such debate and reflects on the morality of the market price.     

The assimilation of Australian immigrants: does occupation matter?

This paper utilises the occupational attainment approach to investigate immigrant labour market assimilation, complementing other assimilation approaches such as employability, earnings, skills-match and job satisfaction. Our results show that all immigrant groups suffer from initial occupational attainment disadvantage. Worryingly, no ‘catch-up’ over time is evident – even when disaggregated to reflect different cultures and backgrounds. Nor is there much evidence that the occupational status of younger arrivals matches those of Australian born residents, despite being immersed in local mores and institutions while undertaking schooling in Australia. Newer cohorts of immigrants (those who arrived between 2000 and 2014) are also more prone to suffering an occupational penalty. We recommend policymakers subsidise bridging courses to aid recognition of overseas-obtained qualifications and encourage immigrants to obtain local qualifications that can complement their overseas-obtained work experience. This will increase their ‘Australian-ready’ skill-set and occupational attainment in their new host country.     

How much does schooling disutility matter?

Studies on structural education choice models are often inconsistent in choosing whether and how to include a disutility of education, especially in an environment with risk and wealth inequality. We show that adding a disutility term to the education decision, a human capital investment option, is equivalent to assuming a relationship between wealth, risk, and education. Utility gain from education is increasing in the riskiness of future consumption. A riskier environment further propels an agent to choose the human capital investment option that maximizes future income. If the degree of risk increases heterogeneously across multiple human capital investment options, risk aversion and the precautionary savings motive can compound or negate each other depending on which option has a greater increase in risk.     

Forecasting federal budget deficits: how reliable are US Congressional budget office projections?

US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts of nominal government expenditure, revenue, and deficits as well as nominal gross national product are examined for their reliablity. Critics contend that the CBO is too optimistic. Eyeball examination of the data lends credence to this view. But, careful consideration suggests a more complex story. In sum,the CBO could have improved, ex ante, the efficiency of its deficit forecasts. And, improvements appear to be available in the forecasting of both federal government reveneue and expenditure. The compartmentalization of these forecasts into different CBO Divisions may have led to the reduced effciency.     

Cost efficiency in Bangladesh banking: does financial reform matter?

This article estimates the cost efficiency of the commercial banks of Bangladesh in the context of financial reform. Employing the single-stage stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model, the study uses a unique balanced panel data set comprising bank-level annual data from the dominant commercial banks in Bangladesh for the period 1983–2012. The results show that bank cost has fallen due to financial deregulation. Our results from the data envelopment analysis do not vary significantly that we obtained from the SFA. In addition, the presence of politically linked directors on the bank board has an adverse effect on efficiency. These findings suggest that further reforms aiming at removing all sorts of political influence should continue to ensure competitive environment in order to achieve cost efficiency in the financial sector of the country.     

The older nurse in the workplace: does age matter?

Between 2010 and 2020, over 40% of the RN workforce will be over 50 years of age, and many RNs are expected to retire and withdraw from the workforce. Given that older nurses are the fastest growing cohort of the workforce, the important findings presented in this article deserve careful consideration by policymakers, health care leaders, and managers.     

Stochastic optimization applied to self-financing portfolio: does bequest matter?

The article studies stochastic optimization of an intertemporal consumption model to allocate financial assets between risky and risk-free assets. We use a stochastic optimization technique, in which utility is maximized subject to a self-financing portfolio constraint. The papers in literature have estimated the errors of Euler equations using data from financial markets. It has been shown that it is sufficient to test the first order Euler equation implied by the model. However, they all assume a constant consumption–wealth ratio that constrains the boundary conditions, hence influencing the coefficient of the risk premium. The main contribution of our article is that we drop the assumption of a constant consumption–wealth ratio. We have an analytical solution using a utility maximization model with a stochastic self-financing portfolio. We introduce a terminal condition of wealth with and without bequests. We also simulate the stochastic optimization with a self-financing portfolio, distinguishing risk neutral investors (γ-low) from high risk averse investors (γ-high). We show that the model with bequest has a higher level of wealth and a smoother decline of consumption over time than the model with no bequest at the end of the period. The model with no bequest has the same level of consumption and a sharp fall at the end of the period. Risk averse agents with high return assets have a higher amount of wealth than risk-neutral agents with lower return assets.     

The cost of registering property: does legal origin matter?

There is a large literature that finds that common law countries perform better than civil law countries in various aspects of the institutional environment. This article extends these findings to another dimension of institutional quality??the cost of registering property. In a sample of 121 countries, we find that the cost of registering property is lower by 26 percent of the world average in common law compared with civil law countries, a result largely driven by differences in non-notary costs of registering property. We provide plausible explanations for these findings.     

Higher education enrolment in Bangladesh: does the wage premium matter?

This paper empirically examines the decisions of individuals to enrol in a course of tertiary education in Bangladesh, focussing on the period 1999 to 2009. Of particular interest is whether the wage premium―the gap in wage earnings between tertiary and secondary school graduates―is associated with decisions to enrol in tertiary education. The analytical framework used here is the human capital theory, which is tested through a discrete choice model. Using data from Bangladesh Labour Force Surveys, empirical results suggest that the wage premium is positively associated with decisions of males to enrol in tertiary education, while for females there appears to be no such association. A battery of robustness tests supports our results.     

Growth in Africa: does the source of investment financing matter?

This paper examines empirical evidence for 11 sub-Saharan African countries on the relationship between economic growth and three principal sources of investment funds: foreign aid, foreign direct investment, and domestic saving. In light of the shortcomings of traditional cross-section analyses, the time series approach is used instead. Modern time series methods are rigorously applied, beginning with unit root tests and followed by model specifications that reflect the revealed temporal behaviours of the variables in each of the 11 countries. Domestic saving seems to play a somewhat more important role in generating economic growth than foreign direct investment or foreign aid. However, the mixture of results across the 11 countries implies that, in general, it is not possible to rank one source of investment financing ahead of any other.     

An international comparison of hospital efficiency: does institutional environment matter?

The consensus among many health economists is that no meaningful performance differences exist among for-profit and non-profit hospitals in the US, but this topic has continued to be a matter of academic, judicial, and public policy interest. A similar debate has ensued internationally, regarding the potential efficiency gains from privatization of public enterprises. In this paper, we examine empirical evidence from the public, highly regulated Norwegian hospital sector and the private, highly competitive and unregulated California hospital sector to ascertain whether institutional environment and level of market competition significantly affect the degree of productive efficiency in hospitals. We compare and discuss the productive efficiency of four similar sets of hospitals operating in different institutional and competitive environments. The four samples are carefully matched in the dimensions of sample size, hospital size, and average lengths of stay. Heterogeneity in output definition is used to control for other dimensions (casemix, age distribution of patients). We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate and compare average long-run as well as short-run efficiency measures across groups. We find that scale and scope regulation of Norwegian hospitals improves long-run efficiency, primarily due to better utilization of capital.     

Dual track or academic route for auditors: does it matter?

In the Netherlands auditors can be trained in a part-time educational track in which students combine working and studying or in a full-time educational track. The former training is relatively firm-specific whereas the latter training is relatively general. Applying human capital theory, we expect higher wage growth for full-time educated auditors than for dual-educated auditors. Furthermore, full-time educated auditors may have better outside options than part-time educated auditors. This may make it easier for them to switch employers than for the part-time educated auditors. The predictions on tenure and wages of differently educated auditors are supported by the estimation results in this paper. The part-time, dual track appears an important route for students from a lower socioeconomic background.     

Optimal monetary policy revisited: does considering US real-time data change things?

The primary goal of this article is to investigate whether properly modelling real-time data and optimal real-time decision-making of a monetary planner provides new insights into monetary policy behaviour and outcomes. This article extends a variant of the asymmetric preference model suggested by Ruge-Murcia to investigate the use of real-time data available to policymakers when making their decisions and revised data which more accurately measure economic performance, but is only available much later. In our extended model, the central banker targets a weighted average of revised and real-time inflation together with a weighted average of revised and real-time output. Moreover, we allow for an asymmetric central bank response to real-time data depending on whether the unemployment rate is high or low. Our model identifies several new potential sources of inflation bias due to data revisions. Our empirical results suggest that the Federal Reserve Bank focuses on targeting revised inflation during low unemployment periods, but it weighs heavily real-time inflation during high unemployment periods. The inflation bias due to data revisions is comparable in magnitude to the bias from asymmetric central banker preferences with the bias being somewhat larger during high unemployment.