Statistical Analysis of Choice Experiments and Surveys

Measures of households' past behavior, their expectations with respect to future events and contingencies, and their intentions with respect to future behavior are frequently collected using household surveys. These questions are conceptually difficult. Answering them requires elaborate cognitive and social processes, and often respondents report only their “best” guesses and/or estimates, using more or less sophisticated heuristics. A large body of literature in psychology and survey research shows that as a result, responses to such questions may be severely biased. In this paper, (1) we describe some of the problems that are typically encountered, (2) provide some empirical illustrations of these biases, and (3) develop a framework for conceptualizing survey response behavior and for integrating structural models of response behavior into the statistical analysis of the underlying economic behavior.     

The British Airways Heritage Collection: an ethnographic ‘history’

This article develops an ethnographic account of the development and history of the British Airways Heritage Centre (BAHC). Responding to several observations throughout the literature, we report on our experiences of engagement with British Airways’ archives over a 25-year period. In doing so our focus is on the much-neglected history of archives as powerful influences on how corporate histories are written. The ethnographic account is rooted in ANTi-History, an approach to historiography, that focuses on the production of history as knowledge of the past by following a number of human (e.g. archive volunteers) and non-human (e.g. airline artefacts) actors to reassemble the elements that constitute an archive at a point in time. To that end, we trace the inter-relationships between histories of British Airways and the development of the BAHC. We conclude that a focus on the various human and non-human relationships that constitute an archive can help the researcher to identify the hidden influences on the production of history that can otherwise serve to enrol him or her.     

Limit order books and trade informativeness

In the microstructure literature, information asymmetry is an important determinant of market liquidity. The classic setting is that uninformed dedicated liquidity suppliers charge price concessions when incoming market orders are likely to be informationally motivated. In limit order book (LOB) markets, however, this relationship is less clear, as market participants can switch roles, and freely choose to immediately demand or patiently supply liquidity by submitting either market or limit orders. We study the importance of information asymmetry in LOBs based on a recent sample of 30 German Deutscher Aktienindex (DAX) stocks. We find that Hasbrouck's (1991) measure of trade informativeness Granger causes book liquidity, in particular that required to fill large market orders. Picking-off risk due to public news-induced volatility is more important for top-of-the book liquidity supply. In our multivariate analysis, we control for volatility, trading volume, trading intensity and order imbalance to isolate the effect of trade informativeness on book liquidity.     

Informed arbitrage with speculative noise trading

We consider speculative noise trading when some naïve speculators trade on noise as if it were information [Black, F., 1986. Noise. Journal of Finance 41, 529–543]. We examine the optimal trading strategy of an informed investor who faces such naïve speculators in the market. We find that the informed investor trades aggressively on her information and takes large, opposite positions against the naïve speculators. The trading volume is thereby drastically magnified. While such speculative noise trading enhances liquidity, it makes prices less efficient. The overall dynamic patterns that emerge from our model are most consistent with the evidence for interday variations in volume, volatility, and transaction costs.     

The effect of business taxation on the location of industry

A theoretical and econometric model is specified which permits the estimation of the effect of local taxes on economic activity in a locality. A location elasticity of ?0.35 is found for manufacturing activity in New York City with respect to business taxes, while no significant elasticity is found for nonmanufacturing activity. The deadweight losses and revenue effects of the tax are analyzed and calculated, as are the optimal second-best taxes for a locality.     

Modelling property values in Nigeria using artificial neural network

Unreliable and inaccurate property valuation has been associated with techniques currently used in property valuation. A possible explanation for these findings may be due to the utilisation of traditional valuation methods. In the current study, an artificial neural network (ANN) is applied in property valuation using the Lagos metropolis property market as a representative case. Property sales transactions data (11 property attributes and property value) were collected from registered real estate firms operating in Lagos, Nigeria. The result shows that the ANN model possesses a good predictive ability, implying that it is suitable and reliable for property valuation. The relative importance analysis conducted on the property attributes revealed that the number of servants’ quarters is the most important attribute affecting property values. The findings suggest that the ANN model could be used as a tool by real estate stakeholders, especially valuers and researchers for property valuation.     

Investment in Africa's Manufacturing Sector: A Four Country Panel Data Analysis

Firm level data for the manufacturing sector in Africa, presented in this paper, shows very low levels of investment. The importance of profit effects on investment is investigated using a flexible accelerator, a specification based on the Euler equation and a simple generalisation of these specificiations. There are controls for firm fixed effects. It is shown that the profit effect is very similar for both the accelerator and Euler equation specifications. A comparison with other studies shows that, for small firms, the effect is much smaller in Africa than for other countries. Reasons for the relative insensitivity of investment to profits in African firms are suggested. For the most general specification tested there are no significant differences in the size of the profit effect across the four countries in the study.     

Health-Care Payment Systems: Cost and Quality Incentives—Reply

I reconsider the implementation of efficient cost and quality efforts when health-care providers may refuse services to consumers, and introduce a mechanism that is a combination of prospective payment and cost reimbursement. Conditions are derived for the prospective payment level and the margin above cost reimbursement for the implementation of efficient efforts.     

INCOME DISTRIBUTIONS IN INPUT-OUTPUT MODELS

The analysis of income distribution (ID) has traditionally been of prime importance for economists and policy-makers. However, the standard input–output (I–O) model is not particularly well equipped for studying current issues such as the consequences of decreasing access to primary inputs or the effects of specific redistributive policies. This paper addresses this gap in the existing literature. We propose that IDs can excellently be studied by restructuring the I–O relations. A new coefficients matrix is defined, the so-called augmented input coefficients matrix. This matrix is the sum of the intermediate input coefficients matrix and newly constructed matrices of sector-specific input coefficients that represent the existing distribution of income. We show that shifts in the distribution can be modelled by attributing weights to these matrices and vary these according to system-specific rules. Numerical illustrations based on the existing literature are given throughout the paper.