This study uses data from the December 2003 Food Security Supplement of the CPS to compare the food insufficiency and insecurity measures with objective measures of food expenditures and objective and subjective measures of food needs. The study examines the general relationships between these...

This paper investigates the relationship between urbanization and CO2 emissions in a sample of 20 emerging countries over the period 1992–2008 using the semi-parametric panel data model with fixed effects, proposed by Baltagi and Li (2002). We find little evidence in support of an inverted-U...

We propose a test for shape constraints which can be expressed by transformations of the coordinates of multivariate regression functions. The method is motivated by the constraint of symmetry with respect to some unknown hyperplane but can easily be generalized to other shape constraints of...

Due to its modest data demands and transparent model structure, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) remains the most popular tool for water erosion hazard assessment. However, the model has several shortcomings, two of which are likely to have prominent implications for the model results....

This paper proposes a nonparametric test of conditional independence based on the notion that two conditional distributions are equal if and only if the corresponding conditional characteristic functions are equal. We use the functional delta method to expand the test statistic around the...

We simulate the impact of actual food price increase between June 2006 and June 2008 on poverty across different areas and whether the household’s main income source is agricultural activities. We explicitly treat heterogeneity in food price changes and the patterns of consumption and...

This paper investigates the forecasting power of stock prices using two methods, namely, the random walk and the non-parametric methods. Using daily prices of the FTSE/JSE All Share index it is found that non-parametric methodology reveals distributional behaviour in the time series that is not...