Nonlinearities in the real exchange rates: new evidence from developed and developing countries

This paper investigates nonlinearities in the dynamics of real exchange rates. We use Monte Carlo simulations to establish the size properties of the Teräsvirta-Anderson test, when the dynamics of the real exchange rate is influenced by an exogenous process. In addition, we show that a modified nonlinearity test, which includes additional right-hand-side variables, performs much better than the original in both Monte Carlo exercises and in the actual data on 1431 bilateral real exchange rate series. Finally, we investigate the dynamics of the real exchange rate for both developed and developing countries using the modified test for the recent floating period. In general, the results find a greater incidence of nonlinear dynamics for developing country real exchange rates.     

Sequential point estimation of normal mean under LINEX loss function

A sequential point estimation of the mean of a normal distribution is considered under LINEX loss function. The regret of sequential procedures are obtained. Furthermore, it is shown that a sequential procedure with the sample mean as an estimate is asymptotically inadmissible. An accerelated stopping time is also considered. Received: December 1999     

Selection of influential variables in ordinal data with preponderance of zeros

Presence of excess zero in ordinal data is pervasive in areas like medical and social sciences. Unfortunately, analysis of such kind of data has so far hardly been looked into, perhaps for the reason that the underlying model that fits such data, is not a generalized linear model. Obviously some methodological developments and intensive computations are required. The current investigation is concerned with the selection of variables in such models. In many occasions where the number of predictors is quite large and some of them are not useful, the maximum likelihood approach is not the automatic choice. As, apart from the messy calculations involved, this approach fails to provide efficient estimates of the underlying parameters. The proposed penalized approach includes ?₁ penalty (LASSO) and the mixture of ?₁ and ?₂ penalties (elastic net). We propose a coordinate descent algorithm to fit a wide class of ordinal regression models and select useful variables appearing in both the ordinal regression and the logistic regression based mixing component. A rigorous discussion on the selection of predictors has been made through a simulation study. The proposed method is illustrated by analyzing the severity of driver injury from Michigan upper peninsula road accidents.     

Learning, monetary policy rules, and macroeconomic stability

Several papers have documented a regime switch in US monetary policy from ‘passive’ and destabilizing in the pre-1979 period to ‘active’ and stabilizing afterwards. These studies typically work with DSGE models with rational expectations.This paper relaxes the assumption of rational expectations and allows for learning instead. Economic agents form expectations from simple models and update the parameters through constant-gain learning. In this setting, the paper aims to test whether monetary policy may have been a source of macroeconomic instability in the 1970s by inducing unstable learning dynamics.The model is estimated by Bayesian methods. The constant-gain coefficient is jointly estimated with the structural and policy parameters in the system.The results show that monetary policy was respecting the Taylor principle also in the pre-1979 period and, therefore, did not trigger macroeconomic instability.     

The expected real yield and inflation components of the nominal yield curve

The term structure of real yields and expected inflation are two unobserved components of the nominal yield curve. The primary objectives of this study are to decompose nominal yields into their expected real yield and inflation components and to examine their behaviour using state-space and regime-switching frameworks. The dynamic yield-curve models capture three well-known latent factors – level, slope, and curvature – that accurately aggregate the information for the nominal yields and the expected real and inflation components for all maturities. The nominal yield curve is found to increase slightly with a slope of about 120 basis points, while the real yield curve slopes upward by about 20 basis points, and the expected inflation curve is virtually flat at slightly above 2 per cent. The regime-switching estimations reveal that the nominal yield, real yield and expected inflation curves have shifted down significantly since 1999.     

How do trade openness,public expenditure and institutional performance affect unemployment in OIC countries? Evidence from the DCCE approach

This study explores the relationship between trade openness, public expenditure, institutional performance, and unemployment in member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference). The conventional panel data techniques overlook cross-sectional dependence and yield-biased results. A new methodology called dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE) is employed to deal with the issue of cross-sectional dependence. The long-run results demonstrate that trade openness is inversely and significantly associated with overall unemployment and youth unemployment in lower-income as well as all the OIC economies and positively correlated in the higher-income OIC group. Public expenditure has an inverse and significant correlation with unemployment in OIC countries overall and higher-income OIC countries. Moreover, institutional performance and foreign direct investment are negatively related to unemployment in all OIC economies. The research shows the need for the continuation of open trade policies, strong institutions, and higher public expenditure in the OIC countries in order to decrease overall unemployment—in particular, youth unemployment.     

Corrigendum to “Characterization of the asymptotic distribution of semiparametric M-estimators” [J. Econometrics 159 (2) (2010) 252–266]

This note provides correction to Ichimura and Lee (2010).     

基于“家电以旧换新”回收数据评估电子废物产生量估算方法

比较了基于史坦福(Stanford)模型和保有量系数法对我国电子废物产生量的预测,并与中国家电以旧换新活动试点区域的实际回收统计数据进行对比,结果显示除电视机以外,两种估计方法的预测结果都显著高于以旧换新的实际回收数据.其原因首先是产品废弃量的变化深受产品技术变化影响,平板显示技术的快速普及导致CRT电视机废弃量出现短期激增,成为“家电以旧换新”实际回收品的主体,而洗衣机、电冰箱等传统大家电的产品实际使用寿命相对较长;其次是废旧产品回收面临非正式回收部门的竞争,以旧换新以较高的政府补贴引导一定数量的废弃产品流向正规处理企业,但还有相当数量的废旧产品流入了非正式的翻新加工和二手销售渠道.特别是空调和电脑,家庭消费占总消费量的比重较小,产品废弃后的材料回收价值和翻新维修价值都较高,补贴对提升回收量的影响相对较小;最后不同区域之间,预测结果与实际回收情况对比也存在明显的差别.考虑到家电以旧挟新政策停止以后,新颁布实施的废弃电器电子产品回收处理基金的补助力度大幅下降,有资质的回收处理企业重新陷入发展困境.有必要遵循生产者责任延伸制度的原则,积极鼓励扩大生产者的参与,从产品设计和废弃产品回收的逆向物流两方面提高回收利用系统的效率.同时,合理规划再生处理设施的区位和处理规模,需要根据区域和产品特点,对现有预测方法进行优化调整.     

国民经济增长中的出口信用联动机制定量研究

文章利用1978年至2004年的数据,采用三阶段最小二乘方法构建并拟合了包含6个子模块、25个方程和43个变量的"出口信用对国民经济贡献的联立方程模型"。利用联立方程模型进行仿真研究后的结果表明:我国出口信用对我国宏观经济具有较好的贡献度,具体而言,如果进出口银行贷款余额增加1亿元,将导致国内生产总值增长1.82亿元,税收总额增长0.48亿元,就业人数增加2190人。     

A true simulation study of three estimators at equal protection of respondents in randomized response sampling

In this study, three different estimators for estimating the proportion of a sensitive attribute in survey sampling are compared at equal protection of the respondents. The three estimators considered are due to Odumade and Singh (2009, Comm. Statist. Theory Methods) , Singh and Sedory (2011, Sociological Methods and Research) and a new estimator obtained by minimizing a chi‐squared distance. A SAS Macro is developed to compare these three estimators using a simulation study at equal protection of the respondents. A set of data from a real face‐to‐face interview was collected using two decks of cards and has been analyzed. The results are discussed.