Land use for transport projects: Estimating land value

Transportation projects are typically characterized by increased land use, which is a scarce resource of economic value. However, there is a tendency to ignore land value during feasibility studies of transportation projects. This may lead to a reduction in the economic efficiency of a project and to increased land use. This paper presents an economic model, based on the relationship between the elasticity of land price with respect to density, and estimating the future value of land designated for various uses, including transportation projects. The model was applied to transactional data from Israel, and was used for examining the value of land designated for two transport projects within Israel. The conclusions of the study indicate that taking the land value during a feasibility analysis of transportation projects into account, may lead to the consideration of other alternative plans, which may prevent the excessive use of land.     

Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution taking into account the precautionary savings motive

This paper estimates the elasticity of intertemporal substitution for U.S. aggregate time series data, taking into account the precautionary savings motive. By making use of a recursive utility function, we estimate an Euler equation, via GMM. This procedure leads consumption growth rate to depend on asset returns, and on a time-varying variance, which captures the precautionary motive. When significant, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution estimates ranges from 0.4 to 1.8, which are higher than most of the results found in the literature. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that consumers react to risk; however, the contribution of precautionary motive to consumption growth seems to be limited.     

政府R&D资助与企业R&D投入的产出效率比较

本文运用我国28个制造业在1998~2006年的面板数据,在拓展的柯布-道格拉斯知识生产函数基础上,测算了政府R&D资助与企业R&D投入的产出弹性。全样本数据估计出的企业R&D投入与政府R&D资助产出弹性相差4~5倍;以行业R&D强度进行的分组检验,得到前者是后者的2~8倍,而且还具有显著的行业差异,其中在高R&D强度的行业,企业R&D的产出弹性是最高的,政府R&D资助的产出弹性却是最小的。动态估计得到了高R&D强度行业以往的专利产出会对当前的创新产生积极的影响,而其他行业却是相反的。本文的政策含义是政府根据行业特征、企业特征调整R&D资助的方式和对象,政府R&D资助重点应放在规模较小发展前景较好的高科技企业上。     

Capital theory and the origins of the elasticity of substitution (1932-35)

Elasticity of substitution was introduced into economics duringthe early 1930s. It was discovered independently by Hicks inThe Theory of Wages and by Joan Robinson in The Economics ofImperfect Competition, and then was the centre of a polemicinvolving Kahn and Sraffa, among others. The debate focusedon imperfect competition and capital-theoretical issues. Someelements of the 1950s and 1960s capital theory controversy,such as the idea of capital as a Giffen good or the difficultiesof measuring capital, were already discussed at this early stage.     

Comment on “σ: The long and short of it”

I comment on some of the issues discussed by Robert Chirinko (Chirinko, R.S., 2008. σ: The long and short of it. Journal of Macroeconomics 30 (2), 671-686). I also offer some additional evidence and discuss the theoretical implications of the empirical findings regarding σ.     

Overconfidence and consumption over the life cycle

Overconfidence is a widely documented phenomenon. In this paper, we study the implications of consumer overconfidence in a life-cycle consumption/saving model. Our main analytical result is a necessary and sufficient condition under which any degree of overconfidence concerning the mean return on savings can produce a hump in the work-life consumption profile. This condition is almost always met in the data. We show by simulations that overconfidence concerning the variance of the return can have little effect on the long-run average behavior of consumption over the life cycle, and that our basic conclusion is fairly robust with various realistic modifications to the baseline model. We interpret the general applicability of our analytical framework and discuss our numerical results in the light of aggregate consumption data.     

Comment on “Unwrapping some euro area growth puzzles: Factor substitution, productivity and unemployment”

This paper estimates the factor elasticity of substitution of the aggregate production function and then uses these estimates to resolve two puzzles relating to the Euro Area. The paper is novel in three ways: First it uses the CES production technology in the empirical strategy to understand real world economic phenomena; second it uses a frontier empirical methodology; and third it uses a new dataset.     

Taxicab licence value and market regulation

In this article, we model the value of a taxicab licence as the present value of profits generated by quotas on the number of licences set by the Regulator. We propose a calibrated model to simulate the impact of different public policies. We then use French data to estimate this model and show that the value of the licence decreases with the number of licences, but increases with the size and wealth of the city population. Applying this model, we deduce an indirect estimation of the elasticity of demand with respect to availability of the service (number of taxicabs) of 0.78. Hence a 75% increase in the number of taxicabs could occur in France before eliminating the value of the licence.     

产学研合作对湖南省区域经济增长影响的实证分析——基于非参数方法

运用非参数计量方法对湖南省14个市(州)的产学研合作和区域经济增长进行实证分析,结果表明湖南省各市(州)产学研合作对经济增长的影响弹性约为0.12,因此,应进一步理顺管理体制,完善配套政策,选择符合当地实际的产学研合作模式。     

我国城镇居民跨期消费行为实证分析

消费可以分为耐用品和非耐用品两个类别,耐用品在消费中所占的比例日益增加是转轨时期我国城镇居民消费的一个特征。通过我国城镇居民的耐用品消费分析后发现:转轨时期我国城镇居民的跨期替代弹性大约是0.75。另外,期内替代弹性和跨期替代弹性呈现同向变动的特点,而非耐用品消费支出的系数、主观折旧率和跨期替代弹性表现出反向变动的特征。