Improving on two-stage estimators for scale families

Summary Consider the problem of finding an estimator for a scale parameter such that its risk function is bounded by a preassigned constant. As a solution of the problem, two-stage estimators based on only the second sample have been proposed. The paper shows that these estimators can be improved by combining the first and the second sample.     

From Judicial Sovereignty to Collective Democracy: The Development of J.R. Commons’ Perspective on Progressive Institutional Change

Abstract:

This article clarifies the significance of “collective democracy” in the works of John R. Commons by comparing it with “judicial sovereignty” in terms of its contribution to “progress.” We can thus answer two issues that Paul D. Bush does not clearly address: (i) what setup for policy formation contributes to progress and (ii) what is the role of economists within a collective democracy? Based on the comparison, the answer to the first question is collective democracy, and regarding the second question, the roles of economists as both economists and “institutional” economists are extrapolated.     

Undergraduate students’ perceptions of the importance of English in the tourism and hospitality industry

Educators commonly promote English as beneficial to future employability, but students’ perceptions of the importance of English in the tourism and hospitality industry are often not considered. It is important that students’ perceptions are examined as gaining better insights could allow more positive attitudes to both English and the industry being fostered. This study investigated the perceptions of students (n = 71) enrolled at a university in Japan and found no statistically significant differences based on gender, country of origin, year of study, work experience, or future work intentions. However, it was indicated that communicative competence, confidence, English listening, and English speaking were the factors perceived to be most important by the students. Consequently, it is suggested that tourism and hospitality courses should incorporate components that focus mainly on these skills, but not to the detriment of English reading and writing, which were also perceived as important.     

Preparing for disaster: a comparative analysis of education for critical infrastructure collapse

This article explores policy approaches to educating populations for potential critical infrastructure collapse in five different countries: the UK, the US, Germany, Japan and New Zealand. ‘Critical infrastructure’ is not always easy to define, and indeed is defined slightly differently across countries – it includes entities vital to life, such as utilities (water, energy), transportation systems and communications, and may also include social and cultural infrastructure. The article is a mapping exercise of different approaches to critical infrastructure protection and preparedness education by the five countries. The exercise facilitates a comparison of the countries and enables us to identify distinctive characteristics of each country’s approach. We argue that contrary to what most scholars of security have argued, these national approaches diverge greatly, suggesting that they are shaped more by internal politics and culture than by global approaches.     

Welfare‐improving Coordinated Tariff and Sales Tax Reforms under Imperfect Competition

This paper studies the welfare effects of coordinated domestic sales tax reform associated with a reduction of the import tariff under imperfect competition. We set up a simple oligopoly trading model where domestic and exporting firms compete in the home market. We show that, if the initial levels of import tariff and sales tax are positive, there always exist welfare‐improving sales tax reforms. In some cases, a reduction of the sales tax accompanied by a reduction of the import tariff increases social welfare, whereas in other cases, raising the sales tax can increase social welfare.     

Signal Extraction Problems in Seismology*

The earth's surface is under continuous influence of a variety of natural forces such as the effect of past earthquakes, wave, wind, tide, air pressure, precipitation and a variety of human induced sources. Since it is almost impossible to describe the response to these noise inputs precisely, for automatic processing of seismic data, proper statistical modeling is necessary. In this paper, we describe four specific examples of time series modeling for signal extraction problems related to seismology. Namely, we consider 1) the estimation of the arrival time of a seismic signal, 2) the extraction of small seismic signal from noisy data, 3) the detection of the coseismic effect in groundwater level data contaminated by various effects from air pressure etc., and 4) the estimation of changing spectral characteristic of seismic record.     

Endogenous growth cycles in an overlapping generations model with investment gestation lags

Summary. A simple overlapping generations model with investment gestation lags is constructed. The model shows that, if the technology is of the AK type with capital-deepening externalities, the existence of investment gestation lags always generates permanent cyclical fluctuations in the economic growth rate. The mean growth rate is shown to be positive if the external effect is strong. The model also shows that, if the production technology takes the Cobb-Douglas form, there exists a unique steady state in which the economy exhibits neither cyclical fluctuations nor long-run growth.Received: 3 July 2003, Revised: 3 December 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: E32, B13. Correspondence to: Akiomi KitagawaAkiomi Kitagawa, Akihisa Shibata: The authors would like to thank Yasushi Iwamoto, Kazuo Mino, an anonymous referee and seminar participants at the Macroeconomics Workshop for their helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan is gratefully acknowledged.     

Mostly harmless simulations? Using Monte Carlo studies for estimator selection

We consider two recent suggestions for how to perform an empirically motivated Monte Carlo study to help select a treatment effect estimator under unconfoundedness. We show theoretically that neither is likely to be informative except under restrictive conditions that are unlikely to be satisfied in many contexts. To test empirical relevance, we also apply the approaches to a real‐world setting where estimator performance is known. Both approaches are worse than random at selecting estimators that minimize absolute bias. They are better when selecting estimators that minimize mean squared error. However, using a simple bootstrap is at least as good and often better. For now, researchers would be best advised to use a range of estimators and compare estimates for robustness.