Partially varying coefficient instrumental variables models

In this article, we study a new class of semiparametric instrumental variables models, in which the structural function has a partially varying coefficient functional form. Under this specification, the model is linear in the endogenous/exogenous components with unknown constant or functional coefficients. As a result, the ill‐posed inverse problem in a general non‐parametric model with continuous endogenous variables can be avoided. We propose a three‐step estimation procedure for estimating both constant and functional coefficients and establish their asymptotic properties such as consistency and asymptotic normality. We develop consistent estimators for their error variances. We demonstrate that the constant coefficient estimators achieve the optimal ‐convergence rate, and the functional coefficient estimators are oracle. In addition, efficiency issue of the parameter estimation is discussed and a simple efficient estimator is proposed. The proposed procedure is illustrated via a Monte Carlo simulation and an application to returns to education.     

基于投入产出理论的江苏省进出口商品结构合理度评价

文章采用投入产出模型对2000-2010年江苏省进出口商品结构演变及合理度进行评价,发现江苏省进出口商品以工业制成品和加工贸易产品为主、外资企业进出口产品占比逐年提升、进出口商品结构与其支柱和瓶颈产业不匹配、进出口商品结构合理度指教下降、金属品与机电设备制造业演变为支柱产业、电子通信设备制造业有支柱和瓶颈产业双重身份、石油天然气开采业演变为瓶颈产业等现象,并针对性地提出对策建议.     

投资者有限理性行为模型：现状与展望

行为金融目前已成为金融研究的前沿领域。论文首先从投资决策的认知能力和认知心理梳理投资者有限理性的证据,接着综述在此基础上形成的一系列重要的投资者有限理性金融模型,在论文的最后对未来研究进行展望。     

区域产业转移行为的演化博弈分析

文章通过构建演化博弈模型分析了区域产业转移过程中转移方和承接方企业的行为选择,以及在博弈双方政府作用下的演化稳定策略,并通过数值算例和实际案例对结论进行了验证.结果表明,区域产业转移的实现有赖于博弈双方的初始投入成本、超额利润及利润分配的比例等因素,在政府作用机制下更为有效的激励机制将增加区域产业转移的实施概率.     

Risk assessments at the Royal Netherlands Air Force: an explorative study

In this paper, differences in the assessment of mission risks and mission benefits between operators and members of the management level in the transport helicopter branch of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) are studied. Results were obtained from a risk analysis that was conducted in accordance with RNLAF procedures. The analysis suggests that the two organizational levels have a coherent perception on risks despite their hierarchical position. Perceived measures of control – controllability – seem to induce the inclusion or the exclusion of what is appeared to be a risk. The analysis also suggests that risk management tools may obscure these perceptual differences. Risk management tools may therefore not be sufficient to attain safe operations. In discussions and future studies on risk management and on hierarchical differences in risk perception, this is something to take well notice of. Also, managers and others involved in risk management need to recognize the implications of using risk management instruments that are based on simplified models of risk. This research adds to the risk management theory because it connects multi-dimensional risk theory with actual organizational risk management practice.     

Price discovery in the presence of boundedly rational agents

In this paper we propose a sequential model of security trading which, compared to existing models, is extended along the notions of (Simon, H.A., A behavioral model of rational choice. Quart. J. Econ., 1955 Simon, HA. 1955. A behavioral model of rational choice. Quart. J. Econ., 64: 99–118.  [Google Scholar], 64, 99–118; Rubinstein, A., Modeling Bounded Rationality, Zeuthen Lecture Book Series, 1998 (MIT Press: Cambridge, MA), and Odean, T., Do investors trade too much? Am. Econ. Rev., 1999, 89(5), 1279–1298) by adding boundedly rational traders. Our results indicate that both momentum and mean-reversion in asset prices can be attributed to the presence of agents who are subject to systematic errors in the process of forecasting the liquidation value of a risky security. The length of the momentum period is inversely related to both the amount of information-based trading in the market and the rate at which asset specific information is learned by boundedly rational agents. Furthermore, the model allows explicitly to establish a link between the component of the bid–ask spread that can be explained by bounded rationality and both momentum and reversal.     

An experimental study on real-options strategies

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study whether people intuitively use real-option strategies in a dynamic investment setting. The participants were asked to play as an oil manager and make production decisions in response to a simulated mean-reverting oil price. Using cluster analysis, participants can be classified into four groups, which we label ‘mean-reverting’, ‘Brownian motion real-option’, ‘Brownian motion myopic real-option’, and ‘ambiguous’. We find two behavioral biases in the strategies of our participants: ignoring the mean-reverting process, and myopic behavior. Both lead to too frequent switches when compared with the theoretical benchmark. We also find that the last group behaved as if they have learned to incorporate the true underlying process into their decisions, and improved their decisions during the later stage.     

Opportunities for women and Islam: variations upon variations

Religion has long been thought to be an important institution influencing economic development. More recently, it has also been argued that religion influences economic and social opportunities for women, specifically, that Islam limits women's opportunities. A revisionist view has countered with the argument that once one accounts for oil rents and/or fertility, then much of the negative effect disappears. In addition, it has been argued that the impact of Islam varies greatly from region to region. The empirical results from this article indicate that indeed once an account is taken of the impact of fertility, much, but not all, of the negative impact of Islam on relative female performance disappears. In addition, the impact of Islam on relative female performance does vary greatly from region to region. Finally, the inclusion of a variable measuring oil rents does not seem to substantially influence the results.     

The determinants of hospital size: a survivor analysis

A common criticism of foreign aid is that it reduces domestic tax effort. Empirical research on the issue has been hampered by the failure to tackle endogeneity issues effectively. We use measures of geographical and cultural distance to donor countries as instrumental variables to uncover the causal effect of aid on tax revenue in a panel of 93 countries. The tax to GDP ratio is found to decrease following aid inflows. This reduction in tax effort is statistically and economically significant; a one SD increase in aid causes a 0.52 percentage point drop in the tax-to-GDP ratio. The results indicate that the effect is driven by unconditional grants, whereas aid given as loans induces recipient governments to improve their tax effort. Our results are robust to changes in the sample and the use of a nearest neighbour matching technique to account for nonrandom assignment of aid. Our identification strategy is sharpened by the use of a difference-in-difference estimation strategy that leverages a natural experiment in which aid flows exogenously increased for some countries following the Iranian Revolution in 1979.     

Pleasure and belief in Hume's Decision Process

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce explicitly pleasure and belief in what aims at being a Humean theory of decision, like the one developed in Diaye and Lapidus (2005a). Although we support the idea that Hume was in some way a hedonist – evidently different from Bentham's or Jevons' way – we lay emphasis less on continuity than on the specific kind of hedonism encountered in Hume's writings (chiefly the Treatise, the second Enquiry, the Dissertation, or some of his Essays). Such hedonism clearly contrasts to its standard modern inheritance, expressed by the relation between preferences and utility.

The reason for such a difference with the usual approach lies in the mental process that Hume puts to the fore in order to explain the way pleasure determines desires and volition. Whereas pleasure is primarily, in Hume's words, an impression of sensation, it takes place in the birth of passions as reflecting an idea of pleasure, whose “force and vivacity” is precisely a “belief”, transferred to the direct passions of desire or volition that come immediately before action. As a result, from a Humean point of view, “belief” deals with decision under risk or uncertainty, as well as with intertemporal decision and indiscrimination problems.

The latter are explored within a formal framework, and it is shown that the relation of pleasure is transformed by belief into a non-empty class of relations of desire, among which at least one is a preorder.