Historical resources, uncertainty and preservation values: An application of option and optimal stopping models

State agencies and private historical organizations frequently acquire historical sites with unknown characteristics. In this paper, we provide two approaches to evaluating the preservation decision. In the first approach, we show that a historical site which is not permanently preserved provides citizens with a certain flexibility whose value can be measured as an option on the maximum between the current real estate value and the preservation value. In the second approach, we assume that the organization has an infinite planning horizon and chooses the optimal sale date. Using a contingent valuation estimate of the public's willingness to pay for preservation of a specific historical site and the real estate price, we provide simulation values of the preservation option value and the optimal stopping rule.     

Jackknife estimation of stationary autoregressive models

This paper explores the properties of jackknife methods of estimation in stationary autoregressive models. Some general results concerning the correct weights for bias reduction under various sampling schemes are provided and the asymptotic properties of a jackknife estimator based on non-overlapping sub-samples are derived for the case of a stationary autoregression of order p$p$ when the number of sub-samples is either fixed or increases with the sample size at an appropriate rate. The results of a detailed investigation into the finite sample properties of various jackknife and alternative estimators are reported and it is found that the jackknife can deliver substantial reductions in bias in autoregressive models. This finding is robust to departures from normality, ARCH effects and misspecification. The median-unbiasedness and mean squared error properties are also investigated and compared with alternative methods as are the coverage rates of jackknife-based confidence intervals.     

Proper scoring rules for general decision models

If a decision maker whose behavior conforms to the max-min expected utility model is faced with a scoring rule for a subjective expected utility decision maker, she will always announce a probability belonging to her set of priors; moreover, for any prior in the set, there is a scoring rule inducing the agent to announce that prior. We also show that on the domain of Choquet expected utility preferences with risk neutral lottery evaluation and totally monotone capacities, proper scoring rules do not exist. This implies the non-existence of proper scoring rules for any larger class of preferences (CEU with convex capacities, multiple priors).     

Regulations,institutional quality and entrepreneurship

Journal of Regulatory Economics - This paper examines the impact of startup regulations and institutional quality on the level of new business activity in a panel of 119 countries between 2001 and...     

Comparative statics for state-contingent technologies

The implications of supermodularity conditions in comparative-static analysis are analyzed for a generalized version of the separable-effort representation of a firm facing stochastic prices and a stochastic technology. Previous analysis is generalized in two ways. General risk-averse, as opposed to expected-utility, preferences are considered. The stochastic technology is represented by an Arrow–Debreu state-space representation. It is shown that results familiar from the theory of the price-taking firm in the absence of risk generalize to the uncertain case.