Intertemporal substitution in the Spanish economy: Evidence from regional data

This paper studies the intertemporal substitution in consumption and leisure for the Spanish economy by estimating the first‐order conditions of an individual optimization model with regional and aggregate data. While first‐order conditions determining intertemporal substitution in consumption show a good econometric fit, and the value we obtain for the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is similar to previously available results, the econometric fit of the intertemporal condition in leisure indicates that the behaviour of the Spanish labour supply over the cycle is more complex than can be explained by the canonical intertemporal choice model.     

Grants-in-aid and election outcomes in recipient jurisdictions: The impact of EU funds on mayoral elections in Poland

We analyze the impact of EU funds on the outcomes of Polish mayoral elections in 2010 and 2014. We employ an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of EU funds. Our instruments approximate the availability of EU funds. The first instrument builds on the alignment of the local electorate with the regional donor government. The second instrument uses the funds spent in municipalities in the same sub-region dropped from the sample because the mayors do not run again. We do not find convincing empirical evidence in favor of the notion that EU funds increase the vote shares of mayors. We go on to test whether the electoral effect of EU funds is conditional on the attitude towards the donor institution among the population in the recipient population. This conditional factor is under-researched and politically virulent – given citizens’ skepticism towards the EU that Krastev (2017) describes for Central and Eastern European EU members. Our results are affirmative. EU funds increase the vote shares of mayors in municipalities where Krastev (2017) predicts the degree of EU skepticism to be low while they are not found to do so in municipalities where EU skepticism is predicted to be widespread. These results suggest that citizens’ attitudes towards the donor of vertical grants determine the political gains of recipients from using them.     

Returns to women’s education using optimal IV selection

This paper investigates returns to women’s education by applying an optimal IV selection approach, post-Lasso IV estimation, which improves the first-stage predictive relationship between an endogenous regressor and instruments. Using the 2010 American Community Survey, we find that an extra year of education increases married women’s own income by $4,480 and spouse income by $8,822. Our findings indicate that 53% of the increase in women’s consumption by education is attributed to the marriage market, and thus, we conclude that the marriage market is the primary channel through which education improves women’s well-being. The results demonstrate the advantages of the post-Lasso approach: The resulting two-stage least squares estimator maintains efficiency without increasing finite sample bias and is less subject to the inconsistency problem when some instruments are invalid; This differs from the results using the instrument of birth quarters only, which is mostly applied in studies on returns to education.     

Sociological Models Based on Fréchet Random Variables

Products of random variables are of both practical and theoretical significance to social scientists. This has increased the need to have available the widest possible range of statistical results on products of random variables. In this note, the distribution of the product XY is derived when X and Y are independent Fréchet random variables. Extensive tabulations of the associated percentage points are also given.     

Some general results for moments in bivariate distributions

The purpose of this paper is to present a closed formula to compute the moments of a general function from the knowledge of its bivariate survival function. The result is derived by utilizing an integration by parts formula for two variables, which is not readily available in the literature. Many of the existing results are obtained as special cases. Finally, two examples are presented to illustrate the results. In both the examples, mixed moments as well as moments for the series system and parallel system are obtained. The integration by parts formula in two variables, derived here, is of interest in its own right and we hope that it will be useful in other investigations. The integration by parts formula in two variables is derived as a special case of a general formula in n variables.     

Do demand curves for stocks slope down?: Evidence from aggregate data

We examine whether the aggregate demand curve for stocks is downward sloping. As a proxy for aggregate demand, we use net outflows (dividends plus repurchases less net issues) from the stock market scaled by the previous year's market capitalization. To disentangle the information and price pressure effects from the demand curve effects, we use an information-free demographic variable as an instrument and look at the relation between annual changes in aggregate demand and excess market return. We find that information-free changes in the annual aggregate demand for stocks do not lead to changes in the annual excess market return. This finding supports long-term horizontal demand curves for stocks.     

The Effects of Central Banks’ Rate Change Patterns on Financial Market Variables

This study examines whether different patterns of change to the benchmark interest rates of central banks are associated with their contributions to variances in the forecast errors of three financial market variables: the long-term interest rate, the foreign exchange rate, and the stock market index. On average, the central bank’s interest rate accounts for approximately 20% of the variance in each variable. We find that the total range of changes is more important than the frequency of changes. The panel regression shows that the range and frequency of policy rate changes is positively associated with the volatility of long-term interest rates but no association with the volatility of stock prices and exchange rates. These results suggest that small and frequent adjustments of policy rates are desirable for reducing the volatility of interest rates. The panel VAR represents interest rate channel is a more important than exchange rate and stock price channel.     

Customer concentration and loan contract terms

We study pricing and non-pricing features of loan contracts to gauge how the credit market evaluates a firm’s customer-base profile and supply-chain relations. Higher customer concentration increases interest rate spreads and the number of restrictive covenants featured in newly initiated as well as renegotiated bank loans. Customer concentration also abbreviates the maturity of those loans as well as the relationship between firms and their banks. These effects are intensified by customers’ financial distress, the level of relationship-specific investments, and the use of trade credit in customer–supplier relations. Our evidence shows that a deeper exposure to a small set of large customers bears negative consequences for a firm’s relations with its creditors, revealing limits to integration along the supply chain.     

基于VAR 的我国预期通货膨胀率的估计问题研究

在当前影响物价变动的因素愈加广泛和复杂的背景下,如何准确把握未来通货膨胀预期走势进而有效调控通货膨胀至关重要。本文首先通过建立附加前瞻性政策变量的 VAR 预期模型, 根据 2002 年第一季度至 2014 年第三季度的通货膨胀率、实际利率和产出偏差的实际值与预期目 标值的偏差值季度数据,采用卡尔曼滤波递归算法得出我国的通货膨胀预期的估计结果。随后基 于理性预期理论对初步估计结果进行检验。研究结果表明,采用前三个月实际利率、实际通货膨 胀率的算术平均作为下期中国人民银行调控目标的预期值是较为符合我国情况的选择。