Studies such as Lemmon, Roberts and Zender (2008) demonstrate how stable firms' capital structures are over time, and raise the question of whether new theories of capital structure are needed to explain these phenomena. In this paper, I show that trade-off theory-based empirical proxies that...

A growing body of economics research projects the effects of global climate change on economic outcomes. Climate scientists often criticize these articles because nearly all ignore the well-established uncertainty in future temperature and rainfall changes, and therefore appear likely to have...

Models evaluating credit applicants rely on payment performance data, which is only available for accepted applicants. This sampling limitation could lead to biased parameter estimates. We use a nationally representative sample of credit bureau records to examine sample selection bias in account...

This paper proposes and tests a new framework for weighting recursive out-of-sample prediction errors in accordance with their corresponding in-sample estimation uncertainty. In essence, we show how as much information from the sample as possible can be used in the evaluation of prediction...

Theories of poverty traps stand in sharp contrast to the view that anybody can make it through hard work and thrift. However, empirical detection of poverty traps is complicated by the lack of long panels, measurement error, and attrition. This paper shows how dynamic pseudo-panel methods can...

Purchasing power parity exchange rates, or PPPs, are price indexes that summarize prices in each country relative to a numeraire country, typically the United States. These numbers are used to compare living standards across countries, by academics in studies of economic growth, particularly...

Federal statistical agencies in the United States and analogous agencies elsewhere commonly report official economic statistics as point estimates, without accompanying measures of error. Users of the statistics may incorrectly view them as error-free or may incorrectly conjecture error...

We propose a new method for using validation data to correct self-reported weight and height in surveys that do not measure respondents. The standard correction in prior research regresses actual measures on reported values using an external validation dataset, and then uses the estimated...

In various surveys, presence of measurement errors has led to misleading results in estimation of various population parameters. This study indicates the effects of measurement errors on estimates of population total and population variance when samples are drawn using systematic sampling...