This paper proposes an ADF coefficient test for detecting the presence of a unit root in ARMA models of unknown order. Our approach is fully parametric. When the time series has an unknown deterministic trend, we propose a modified version of the ADF coefficient test based on quasi-differencing...

This note examines the question of calculating an augmented cost of living index (ACOLI). The ACOLI is the appropriate deflator to apply to pretax market incomes when calculating economic well-being. Well-being includes, not only conventional consumer purchases, but also goods and services...

There is a large potential for improving individual risk management through new risk management contracts and associated new index-settled derivatives. However, there are some difficult problems in designing contracts so that they will be used effectively. Individuals have idiosyncratic...

The bootstrap of the maximum likelihood estimator of the mean of a sample of iid normal random variables with mean mu and variance one is not asymptotically correct to first order when the mean is restricted to be nonnegative. The problem occurs when the true value of the mean mu equals zero....

This paper studies regressions for partially identified equations in simultaneous equations models (SEMs) where all the variables are I(l) and cointegrating relations are present. Asymptotic properties of OLS and 2SLS estimators under partial identification are derived. The results show that the...

The market portfolio (world portfolio) is in one sense a least important portfolio to provide to investors; there is always a better portfolio for social planners to make available to them. In a J-agent one-period stochastic endowment economy, where preferences are quadratic, the market...

We provide methods of decomposing the variance of world national incomes into components in such a way as to indicate the most important risk-sharing opportunities, and, therefore, the most important missing international risk markets to establish. One method uses a total variance reduction...

This paper studies how managers at automobile assembly plants organize production across time. Detailed data from eleven single-source automobile assembly plants display considerable cross-plant heterogeneity. At plants which make low- and medium-selling vehicles the capital stock often sits...

Over 300 business people, labor leaders, business consultants, and counselors of unemployed people were interviewed during the recession of the early 1990's in order to learn why wages and salaries were declining in only a few firms. Employers believed that cutting pay would hurt employee...