We examine the determinants of low income transitions using first-order Markov models that control for initial conditions effects (those found to be poor in the base year may be a non-random sample) and for attrition (panel retention may also be non-random). The model estimates, derived from...

This paper considers the dynamics of a categorical indicator of self-assessed health using eight waves (1991-1998) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Our analysis has three focal points: the relative contributions of state dependence and heterogeneity in explaining the dynamics of...

This paper relaxes some restrictions of previous twin-based estimates of the effects of education on earnings. First, it estimates the earnings premiums associated with different educational levels. Second, it estimates a piecewise linear relationship between the natural logarithm of annual...

Potential output plays a central role in monetary policy and short-term macroeconomic policy making. Yet, characterizing the output gap involves a trend-cycle decomposition, and unobserved component estimates are typically subject to a large uncertainty at the sample end. An important...

Individuals save for future uncertain health care expenses. This is less efficient than pooling health risk through insurance. The provision of comprehensive health insurance may raise welfare by providing the missing market to smooth out consumption through the life cycle. We employ a...

A study into the geographical variability of timing of initial child breastfeeding after birth was carried out with the data set from the 1999 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey. The effect of the metrical covariate of the mother's age at birth was assumed to be nonlinear and estimated...

Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey and the Assets and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old survey, we estimate the stochastic process that determines both the distribution and dynamics of health care costs. We find that the data-generating process for log health costs is well...

This paper presents estimates of a dynamic individual-level model of cannabis consumption, using data from a 1998 survey of young people in Britain. The econometric model is a split-population generalization of the non-stationary Poisson process, allowing for separate dynamic process for...

This paper examines whether nonlinearities in the aggregate production function can explain parameter heterogeneity in the Solow growth regressions. Nonlinearities in the production technology are introduced by replacing the commonly used Cobb-Douglas (CD) aggregated production specification...

We identify two major changes in the dynamics of the federal funds rate in the 1990s. We model the desired rate in a two-regime setting, one when the Fed makes no change and the other when the Fed is moving the desired rate to a new level. We find that the 1990s saw a longer duration in the...