Income and Democracy: A Smooth Varying Coefficient Redux

Acemoglu et al. (American Economic Review 2008; 98 : 808–842) find no effect of income on democracy when controlling for fixed effects in a dynamic panel model. Work by Moral‐Benito and Bartolucci (Economics Letters 2012; 117 : 844–847) and Cervellati et al. (American Economic Review 2014; 104 : 707–719) suggests that the original model might have been misspecified and proposes alternative specifications instead. We formally test these parametric specifications by implementing Lee's (Journal of Econometrics 2014; 178 : 146–166) dynamic panel test of linear parametric specifications against a general class of nonlinear alternatives robustly and reject all these specifications. However, using a more flexible model proposed by Cai and Li (Econometric Theory 2008; 24 : 1321–1342) we find that the relationship between income and democracy appears to be mediated by education, but results are not statistically significant. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long‐run neutrality of demand shocks: Revisiting Blanchard and Quah (1989) with independent structural shocks

With reference to a stylized theoretical macromodel, Blanchard and Quah (American Economic Review, 1989, 79, 655–673) identify empirical aggregate supply (e.g., productivity) and demand shocks by assuming that the latter are neutral for economic activity in the long run. Taking advantage of recent contributions to the structural VAR literature and data‐based identification, we find that effects of unique independent non‐Gaussian structural shocks support this assumption. Moreover, unlike the results in Blanchard and Quah, statistically identified supply shocks exhibit (insignificantly) opposite impacts on gross domestic product and unemployment in the short run. In comparison with benchmark results obtained under assumed long‐run neutrality, statistical identification points to a stronger role of aggregate supply shocks for shaping temporary profiles of US unemployment during the recessionary period 1973:Q3–1975:Q1.     

Truth and Robustness in Cross‐country Growth Regressions*

We re‐examine studies of cross‐country growth regressions by Levine and Renelt (American Economic Review, Vol. 82, 1992, pp. 942–963) and Sala‐i‐Martin (American Economic Review, Vol. 87, 1997a, pp. 178–183; Economics Department, Columbia, University, 1997b). In a realistic Monte Carlo experiment, their variants of Edward Leamer's extreme‐bounds analysis are compared with a cross‐sectional version of the general‐to‐specific search methodology associated with the LSE approach to econometrics. Levine and Renelt's method has low size and low power, while Sala‐i‐Martin's method has high size and high power. The general‐to‐specific methodology is shown to have a near nominal size and high power. Sala‐i‐Martin's method and the general‐to‐specific method are then applied to the actual data from Sala‐i‐Martin's original study.     

Credit Booms Gone Bust: Replication of Schularick and Taylor (AER 2012)

This paper replicates the results in Schularick and Taylor (American Economic Review 2012; 102 (2): 1029–1061; ST hereafter). Specifically, I replicate ST's results in the ‘narrow’ sense by reproducing their calculations in the open source econometrics package gretl. (Gretl is an acronym for Gnu Regression, Econometrics and Time‐series Laboratory. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux at www.gretl.sourceforge.net .) I also demonstrate the robustness of ST's findings to different estimation methods. I obtain qualitatively similar results to ST via Bayesian estimation of both static and dynamic panel probit models. Finally, I show that the marginal effects of credit growth on the probability of a financial crisis vary considerably across the countries in the dataset. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

RARE SHOCKS,GREAT RECESSIONS

We estimate a DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) model where rare large shocks can occur, by replacing the commonly used Gaussian assumption with a Student's t‐distribution. Results from the Smets and Wouters (American Economic Review 2007; 97 : 586–606) model estimated on the usual set of macroeconomic time series over the 1964–2011 period indicate that (i) the Student's t specification is strongly favored by the data even when we allow for low‐frequency variation in the volatility of the shocks, and (ii)) the estimated degrees of freedom are quite low for several shocks that drive US business cycles, implying an important role for rare large shocks. This result holds even if we exclude the Great Recession period from the sample. We also show that inference about low‐frequency changes in volatility—and, in particular, inference about the magnitude of Great Moderation—is different once we allow for fat tails. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technological Change and Transition: Relative Contributions to Worldwide Growth During the 1990s*

In this paper we use the Kumar and Russell [American Economic Review (2002) Vol. 92, pp. 527–548] growth‐accounting procedure to examine cross‐country growth during the 1990s. Using a data set comprising developed, newly industrialized, developing and transitional economies, we decompose the growth of output per worker into components attributable to technological catch‐up, technological change and capital accumulation. In contrast to the study by Kumar and Russell, which concludes that capital deepening is the major force of growth and change in the world income per worker distribution over the 1965–90 period, our analysis shows that, during the 1990s, the major force in the further divergence of the rich and the poor is due to technological change, whereas capital accumulation plays a lesser and opposite role. Finally, although on average we find that transitional economies perform similar to the rest of the world, the procedure is able to discover some interesting patterns within the set of transitional countries.     

Arbitrage, equilibrium, and gains from trade: A counterexample

We present a counterexample to a theorem due to Chichilnisky (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1993, 29, 189–207; American Economic Review, 1994, 84, 427–434). Chichilnisky's theorem states that her condition of limited arbitrage is necessary and sufficient for the existence of an equilibrium in an economy with unbounded short sales. Our counterexample shows that the condition defined by Chichilnisky is not sufficient for existence of equilibrium. We also discuss difficulties in Chichilnisky (Economic Theory, 1995, 5, 79–107).     

We Ran One Regression*

The controversy over the selection of ‘growth regressions’ was precipitated by some remarkably numerous ‘estimation’ strategies, including two million regressions by Sala‐i‐Martin [American Economic Review (1997b) Vol. 87, pp. 178–183]. Only one regression is really needed, namely the general unrestricted model, appropriately reduced to a parsimonious encompassing, congruent representation. We corroborate the findings of Hoover and Perez [Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics (2004) Vol. 66], who also adopt an automatic general‐to‐simple approach, despite the complications of data imputation. Such an outcome was also achieved in just one run of PcGets, within a few minutes of receiving the data set in Fernández, Ley and Steel [Journal of Applied Econometrics (2001) Vol. 16, pp. 563–576] from Professor Ley.     

Correcting Standard Errors in Two‐stage Estimation Procedures with Generated Regressands*

Feenstra and Hanson [NBER Working Paper No. 6052 (1997)] propose a procedure to correct the standard errors in a two‐stage regression with generated dependent variables. Their method has subsequently been used in two‐stage mandated wage models [Feenstra and Hanson, Quarterly Journal of Economics (1999) Vol. 114, pp. 907–940; Haskel and Slaughter, The Economic Journal (2001) Vol. 111, pp. 163–187; Review of International Economics (2003) Vol. 11, pp. 630–650] and for the estimation of the sector bias of skill‐biased technological change [Haskel and Slaughter, European Economic Review (2002) Vol. 46, pp. 1757–1783]. Unfortunately, the proposed correction is negatively biased (sometimes even resulting in negative estimated variances) and therefore leads to overestimation of the inferred significance. We present an unbiased correction procedure and apply it to the models reported by Feenstra and Hanson (1999) and Haskel and Slaughter (2002) .     

Beware of ‘Good’ Outliers and Overoptimistic Conclusions*

The main goal of this paper is to warn practitioners of the danger of neglecting outliers in regression analysis, in particular, good leverage points (i.e. points lying close to the regression hyperplane but outlying in the x‐dimension). While the types of outliers which do influence regression estimates (vertical outliers and bad leverage points) have been extensively investigated, good leverage points have been largely ignored, probably because they do not affect the estimated regression parameters. However, their effect on inference is far from negligible. We propose a step‐by‐step procedure to identify and treat all types of outliers. The paper of Persson and Tabellini [American Economic Review (2004) Vol. 94, pp. 25–46] linking the degree of proportionality of an electoral system to the size of government is discussed to illustrate how the choice of a measure and the existence of atypical observations may substantially influence results.     

Estimating Bayesian Decision Problems with Heterogeneous Expertise

We consider the recent novel two‐step estimator of Iaryczower and Shum (American Economic Review 2012; 102 : 202–237), who analyze voting decisions of US Supreme Court justices. Motivated by the underlying theoretical voting model, we suggest that where the data under consideration display variation in the common prior, estimates of the structural parameters based on their methodology should generally benefit from including interaction terms between individual and time covariates in the first stage whenever there is individual heterogeneity in expertise. We show numerically, via simulation and re‐estimation of the US Supreme Court data, that the first‐order interaction effects that appear in the theoretical model can have an important empirical implication. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing the Political Replacement Effect: A Panel Data Analysis*

This article tests for the existence of the political replacement effect, as suggested by Acemoglu and Robinson: [American Political Science Review, Vol. 100, pp. 115–131]. They argue that the implementation of market‐oriented reform is crucially driven by the political calculus of incumbent governments: they implement economic policy change if such a choice is not expected to reduce their chances to retain power. This implies a non‐monotonic relationship between the level of political competition and the extent of economic reform. We test this hypothesis using data for 102 countries over the period 1980 to 2005. Our results strongly support the theory.     

The Robust Relationship Between US Food Aid and Civil Conflict

Humanitarian aid has long been considered an important means to reduce hunger and suffering in developing countries. A recent finding by Nunn and Qian (US food aid and civil conflict, American Economic Review 2014; 104 : 1630–1666) that such aid from the US increases the incidence and duration of civil conflict in recipient countries, however, questions the effectiveness of this policy and poses a serious policy concern for the US government. We revisit this issue by conducting a successful replication study of the results in their paper. In order to further scrutinize their claims that a heterogeneous effect of food aid on conflict is not present, we employ a semiparametric endogenous estimation procedure. We show that their parametric models cannot be rejected and argue that their findings are robust. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments*

The difference and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators are growing in popularity. As implemented in popular software, the estimators easily generate instruments that are numerous and, in system GMM, potentially suspect. A large instrument collection overfits endogenous variables even as it weakens the Hansen test of the instruments’ joint validity. This paper reviews the evidence on the effects of instrument proliferation, and describes and simulates simple ways to control it. It illustrates the dangers by replicating Forbes [American Economic Review (2000) Vol. 90, pp. 869–887] on income inequality and Levine et al. [Journal of Monetary Economics] (2000) Vol. 46, pp. 31–77] on financial sector development. Results in both papers appear driven by previously undetected endogeneity.     

R&D,Innovation and Knowledge Spillovers: A Reappraisal of Bottazzi and Peri (2007) in the Presence of Cross‐Sectional Dependence

Bottazzi and Peri (Economic Journal 2007; 117 : 486–511) show the existence of a cointegrating relationship between the domestic stock of knowledge, domestic R&D and the international knowledge stock for a panel of OECD countries and interpret it as evidence supporting the semi‐endogenous versus the endogenous growth theory. We replicate the baseline specification of their study and we show that main results are robust to the use of a different estimation strategy (Bai et al., Journal of Econometrics 2009; 149 : 82–99) that duly takes into account cross‐sectional correlation: interestingly, in this case we also find a larger role for knowledge spillovers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Federal budget deficits and long-term interest rates in USA

We investigate whether the emergence of high inflation rates after 1965 and large budget deficits after 1980s caused the financial market agents to become more sensitive to the outlooks for inflation and budget deficits. Our approach is parametric and our models fully account for possible presence of ARCH effects in the data.Our results show a statistically significant positive link between the budget deficits and the slope of the yield curve which is more pronounced in the later sub-sample period. These results are in line with Reinhard and Sack [Reinhard, V., & Sack, B. (2000). The economic consequences of disappearing government debt. Brooking Papers of Economic Activity, 163–209] but in sharp contrast with Evans [Evans, P. (1985). Do large deficits produce high interest rates? American Economic Review, 7, 68–87] and Evans [Evans, P. (1987). Do budget deficits raise nominal interest rates? Journal of Monetary Economics, 20, 281–300].     

Limited arbitrage is necessary and sufficient for the existence of an equilibrium

In Chichilnisky (Working Paper No. 586, 1991), Chichilnisky (Working Paper No. 650, 1992) and Chichilnisky (Economic Theory, 1995, 5, 79–108), I introduced the concept of a global cone and used it to define a condition on endowments and preferences, ‘limited arbitrage’, which I showed to be necessary and sufficient for the existence of a competitive equilibrium. In response to a comment (Monteiro et al., Journal of Mathematical Economics, 1997, 26, 000-000), I show here that the authors misunderstood my results by focussing on brief announcements which cover other areas, social choice (Chichilnisky, American Economic Review, 1994, 427–434 and algebraic topology (Chichilnisky, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1993, 29, 189–207), rather than on the publication which contains may proofs on equilibrium. The comment's example is irrelevant to my results in Chichilnisky (Economic Theory, 1995, 5, 79–108) because it starts from different conditions. Limited arbitrae is always necessary and sufficient for the existence of a competitive equilibrium, with or without short sales, with the global cones as I defined them, and exactly as proved in Chichilnisky (Economic Theory, 1995, 5, 79–108).     

The cyclicality of R&D investment revisited

In Fabrizio and Tsolmon (Review of Economics and Statistics, 2014, 96(4), 662–675) and Barlevy (American Economic Review, 2007, 97(4), 1131–1164) it was concluded that R&D investments are procyclical. Fabrizio and Tsolmon utilized a model based on Barlevy, but it differed in some respects and allowed for more heterogeneity. However, we doubt whether their implied trends are intended. Fabrizio and Tsolmon also set missing values for R&D equal to zero, leading to unrealistic jumps in investment and its first differences. We reconcile and replicate both the Fabrizio and Tsolmon and Barlevy papers by considering extensions that encompass both models. Furthermore, we treat missing values more appropriately and consider some alternative specifications to check the robustness of the results. Procyclicality is confirmed, but we find much less heterogeneity than Fabrizio and Tsolmon did. In particular, obsolescence and patent effectiveness are no longer important but external financing is.     

Structural change and female participation in recent economic growth: a multisectoral analysis for the Spanish economy

ABSTRACT

Economic growth has different impacts on gender gaps. In recent decades the growing participation of women in the labour market has reduced the gender employment gap, however a notable gender pay gap still persists standing at around 15% on average in the European Union. In this context, this paper evaluates the impact of economic growth patterns on the evolution of gender employment and pay gaps. First, sectorial feminization, direct discrimination, and structural change factors are identified and evaluated as ways to explain changes observed in the gender pay gap. Second, we explore the influence of demand, technology, and intensity factors on the evolution of employment combining gender, skill, sectorial, and temporal perspectives. As a case study, we examine Spanish economic growth from 1980 to 2007 and the influences on the size, composition (by skill), and distribution (by sector) of female and male employment, as well as the consequences for gender gaps. Our results show that structural change contributed to reduce the gender employment gap in Spain; while the evolution of the gender pay gap is less conclusive, following a sort of inverted U-shape. This paper shows the suitability and potential of the multisectorial input–output framework to analyse structural and technological changes and their impacts on the gender employment and pay gaps.     

Combining Time Variation and Mixed Frequencies: an Analysis of Government Spending Multipliers in Italy

In this paper, we propose a time‐varying parameter vector autoregression (VAR) model with stochastic volatility which allows for estimation on data sampled at different frequencies. Our contribution is twofold. First, we extend the methodology developed by Cogley and Sargent (Drifts and volatilities: monetary policies and outcomes in the post WWII U.S. Review of Economic Studies 2005; 8 : 262–302) and Primiceri (Time varying structural vector autoregressions and monetary policy. Review of Economic Studies 2005; 72 : 821–852) to a mixed‐frequency setting. In particular, our approach allows for the inclusion of two different categories of variables (high‐frequency and low‐frequency) into the same time‐varying model. Second, we use this model to study the macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks in Italy over the 1988:Q4–2013:Q3 period. Italy—as well as most other euro area economies—is characterized by short quarterly time series for fiscal variables, whereas annual data are generally available for a longer sample before 1999. Our results show that the proposed time‐varying mixed‐frequency model improves on the performance of a simple linear interpolation model in generating the true path of the missing observations. Second, our empirical analysis suggests that government spending shocks tend to have positive effects on output in Italy. The fiscal multiplier, which is maximized at the 1‐year horizon, follows a U‐shape over the sample considered: it peaks at around 1.5 at the beginning of the sample; it then stabilizes between 0.8 and 0.9 from the mid 1990s to the late 2000s, before rising again to above unity during the recent crisis. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.