This paper examines the technical efficiency of U.S. Federal Reserve check processing offices over 1980-2003. We extend results from Park et al. (2000) and Daouia and Simar (2007) to develop an unconditional, hyperbolic, amp;#945;-quantile estimator of efficiency. Our new estimator is fully...

We analyze optimal discretionary monetary policy in an endogenous sticky prices model. Similar models with exogenous sticky prices can deliver multiple equilibria. This is a necessary condition for the occurrence of expectation traps (when private agents' expectations determine the equilibrium...

This paper finds strong evidence of time-variations in the joint distribution of returns on a stock market portfolio and portfolios tracking size- and value effects. Mean returns, volatilities and correlations between these equity portfolios are found to be driven by underlying regimes that...

This paper characterizes the tatonnement of high-frequency returns from U.S. Treasury spot and futures markets. In particular, we highlight the previously neglected role of the futures markets in price discovery. The highest futures market shares are in the longest maturities. The estimates of...

This paper finds that standard asset pricing models fail to explain the significantly negative delta hedging errors from buying options on foreign exchange futures. Foreign exchange volatility does influence stock returns, however. The volatility of the JPY/USD exchange rate predicts the time...

This paper estimates the responsiveness of aid to recipient countries' economic and physical needs, civil/political rights, and government effectiveness. We look exclusively at the post-Cold War era and control for the political, strategic, and other considerations of donors with fixed effects....

State per capita incomes became more disperse during the contraction phase of the Great Depression, and less disperse during the recovery phase. We investigate the effects of spatial dependence, industrial composition, bank failures and fiscal policies on state income growth during each phase....

This paper merges the literature on technical trading rules with the literature on Markov switching to develop economically useful trading rules. The Markov models' out-of sample, excess returns modestly exceed those of standard technical rules and are profitable over the most recent subsample....

We document that persistent and lagged inflation (with respect to output) is a world-wide phenomenon in that these short-run inflation dynamics are highly synchronized across countries. In particular, the average cross-country correlation of inflation is significantly and systematically stronger...

This paper explores the effect of mortalities from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic and World War I on real wage growth in the manufacturing sectors of U.S. states from 1914 to 1919. The general hypothesis is that both events caused a significant decrease in the supply of manufacturing labor,...