Shephard's lemma and rate of return regulation

By counter example this paper shows that in general, Shephard's lemma cannot be used for the usual formulation of the rate of return regulated cost function. A solution to the problem is supplied.     

Risk minimization in stochastic volatility models: model risk and empirical performance

In this paper the performance of locally risk-minimizing delta hedge strategies for European options in stochastic volatility models is studied from an experimental as well as from an empirical perspective. These hedge strategies are derived for a large class of diffusion-type stochastic volatility models, and they are as easy to implement as usual delta hedges. Our simulation results on model risk show that these risk-minimizing hedges are robust with respect to uncertainty and misconceptions about the underlying data generating process. The empirical study, which includes the US sub-prime crisis period, documents that in equity markets risk-minimizing delta hedges consistently outperform usual delta hedges by approximately halving the standard deviation of the profit-and-loss ratio.     

Radial and directional measures of the rate of technical change

In this paper we develop radial and directional measures of the rate of technical change for the class of directional distance functions. For both types, we distinguish between primal and dual measures while the former are further divided into oriented (input- and output-based) and non-oriented. We highlight the pivotal role of translation elasticity in examining the interrelationships among the alternative directional measures and that of scale elasticity in the case of radial measures. We also show that the radial and directional measures are related one another through the normalized (with the value of the direction vector) dual functions.     

Long- versus medium-run identification in fractionally integrated VAR models

We state that long-run restrictions that identify structural shocks in VAR models with unit roots lose their original interpretation if the fractional integration order of the affected variable is below one. For such fractionally integrated models we consider a medium-run approach that employs restrictions on variance contributions over finite horizons. We show for alternative identification schemes that letting the horizon tend to infinity is equivalent to imposing the restriction of Blanchard and Quah (1989) introduced for the unit-root case.     

Pollution Abatement and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Germany,Japan, the Netherlands,and the United States

The passage of environmental legislation was accompanied by concerns about its potential detrimental effect on productivity. We assume inputs can be assigned to either abatement activities or good output production. This allows us to specify regulated and unregulated production frontiers to determine the association between pollution abatement and productivity growth. We then employ our “assigned input” model to determine the association between productivity and abatement activities for manufacturing industries in Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.     

Sanierung der Staatsfi nanzen in mittelfristiger Perspektive

Zeitgespr?h

Sanierung der Staatsfi nanzen in mittelfristiger Perspektive     

Pollution abatement and employment

Morgenstern et al. (J Environ Econ Manag 43:412–436, 2002. doi: 10.1006/jeem.2001.1191) are well-known for its investigation of the employment effects of environmental regulations. However, the cost function specified in that paper is handicapped by its reliance on survey data of the costs of inputs assigned to pollution abatement. In this paper, we specify an input distance function that models the joint production of good and bad outputs. This allows us to measure the relative importance of factors associated with changes in employment without pollution abatement cost data. We operationalize our model using a sample of 80 coal-fired electric power plants from 1995 to 2005.