This paper presents a model of cumulative innovation where firms are heterogeneous in their research ability. We study the optimal reward policy when the quality of the ideas and their subsequent development effort are private information. The optimal assignment of property rights must...

This study focuses on the semiparametric efficient estimation of random effect panel models containing AR(1) disturbances. We also consider such estimators when the effects and regressors are correlated (Hausman and Taylor, 1981). One motivation for such a model is the need to estimate a...

The paper compares models of insurance of real property when owners may convert damaged property to another use instead of restoring it to the pre-damage use. First it describes the optimum insurance. The main result is that the deductible and the upper limit are connected by the equation: upper...

We consider a homogenous good oligoply with identical consumers who learn about prices either by (sequentially) visiting firms or by consulting a price agency who sells information about which firm charges the lowest price. In the sequential equilibrium with maximal trade and minimal search,...

This paper considers nonparametric identification of ``latent'' competing risks and Roy duration models in which one does not know which process has been observed. It is shown that these models are identifiable without the usual conditional independence and exclusion restrictions

Sixty percent of medical students switch specialties between the first and fourth year of medical school. These changes have a profound impact on the students' future earnings because there are substantial income differences between specialties. In 1997, for example, the mean income ranged from...

This paper considers computer intensive methods for inference on cointegrating vectors in maximum likelihood analysis. It investigates the robustness of LR , Wald tests and an F-type test for linear restrictions on cointegrating space to misspecification on the number of cointegrating relations....

Binary choice sample selection models are widely used in applied economics with large cross-sectional data where heteroscedaticity is typically a serious concern. Existing parametric and semiparametric estimators for the binary selection equation and the outcome equation in such models suffer...

While many studies find that the tax-price elasticity of giving exceeds unity, several recent studies find the contrary. This is important because it can be shown that if the elasticity exceeds one, then allowing taxpayers to deduct charitable giving from their taxable income is efficient in the...

No abstract.