Forecasting Real Inventories and the Anomaly of Money Illusion

While the transmission mechanism of inventory behavior in the business cycle has been studied, less effort has been devoted to applied forecasting of inventory change. Inventory fluctuations have accounted for a sizable portion of the changes in U.S. GDP during recessions over the past fifty years. In this paper, we report on out-of-sample forecasts of manufacturing and trade inventories generated by regression and neural network methodology. Our forecasting model is Metzlerian in approach, in that the divergence between actual and targeted sales is hypothesized as the primary cause of inventory imbalance. Our forecasts also rely on the slow adjustment of inventory investment to sales surprises. However, the likely presence of money illusion is a caveat to users, and we address several distortions it introduces to inventory management measures.     

The perception of kosher as a third party certification claim in advertising for familiar and unfamiliar brands

This study was undertaken to investigate the inclusion of a kosher claim in an advertisement for a familiar and unfamiliar brand of breakfast cereal. Results showed that, as hypothesized, for the familiar brand a kosher third party endorsement led to significantly more kosher attribute-related thoughts, more favorable product attitude and greater purchase intention. For the unfamiliar brand, no significant impact upon these dependent measures was observed given a kosher endorsement. Findings are interpreted from a cognitive perspective regarding the salience of the kosher attribute in a product familiarity context. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Financial-market effects of Federal Government budget deficits

Conclusion This paper finds that, for the 30-year period 1955–1984, the federal government budget deficit in the United States had a positive and significant effect on the longer-term nominal interest rate. This finding is at odds with most of the existing literature, which finds federal budget deficits to have no measurable impact upon interest rates in the United States [cf. Evans, 1985; 1987; Hoelscher, 1983; Makin, 1983; Motley, 1983; McMillin, 1986; and Mascaro and Meltzer, 1983]. The difference between the findings here and the findings in these other studies can be traced at least in part to the way in which we specify the deficit variable. That is, we distinguish between thestructural deficit, which approximates theexogenous component of the total deficit, and thecyclical deficit, which represents theendogenous component of the total deficit. By contrast, these other related studies measure the deficit in more aggregated ways, which combine the cyclical deficit with the structural deficit into one variable.     

Comparison of alternative methods of updating Input-Output tables: A note

Various methods for updating Input-Output tables have been proposed and comparisons have been made on statistical bases. In this note we show on theoretical bases that several linear programming formulations are not suitable to this problem, since a large proportion of the resulting coefficients assume arbitrarily preset values.     

Measurement errors and bounded OLS estimates

In a multiple linear regression model with one mismeasured independent variable, all coefficients are asymptotically biased. It is shown how in OLS, an examination of the sign of the cofactors of the variance-covariance matrix of measured values can be used to obtain large sample bounds on the coefficients. The method involves forward regression and regression on the mismeasured variable. Bounds are generally obtained on the coefficient of the mismeasured variable and often obtained on the remaining coefficients with no knowledge of the size of the measurement error.     

The Impact of Two-Tier Producer and Consumer Food Pricing in India

India's government buys wheat, rice, and sugar at below themarket price and then sells it in ration shops in the urbanand rural areas. The rest is sold in the open market. This createsa two-tier price system for consumers and producers. Supportersof the government's procurement policy claim that it raisesthe open-market price so much that it increases the sales-weightedaverage of the rationed price and the open-market price; inthat case, both the farm sector as a whole and low-income urbanconsumers with access to the ration shops gain, and high-incomeurban consumers who buy at the open-market price lose. Thisview has provided an intellectual basis for the policy. This article examines a variety of cases: with and without rationing;with rationing through ration cards or queuing; with and withoutaccess by the urban rich to the ration shops; with or withoutfree trade; and with a marketable surplus having either positive,negative, or zero price elasticity. The impact of the policyon the average price is in general ambiguous or negative. Underthe most plausible assumptions, it is negative, implying thatfarmers as a whole lose from the procurement policy.