Previous empirical work on the Purchasing Power Parity does not explicitly account for time-varying trade costs. Motivated by the recent gravity literature we incorporate a microfounded measure of trade costs into two nonlinear regression models for the real exchange rate. Using data for the...

The objective of this paper is to compare the accuracy of crop insurance rating methods based on historical liability and indemnity data (similar to the procedure currently used by the Risk Management Agency) and “yield distribution” approaches. Estimated rates are compared to “true”...

This paper provides an evaluation of five methods, proposed in the literature, for extracting factors used in the estimation of Gaussian affine term structure models. We assert that irrespective of the method used for extracting state variables, cross-sectional and serial correlations exist in...

Agent-based modeling has become increasingly popular in recent years, but there is still no codified set of recommendations or practices for how to use these models within a program of empirical research. This article provides ideas and practical guidelines drawn from sociology, biology,...

This dissertation studies three classes of estimators for the asymptotic variance parameter of a stationary stochastic process. All estimators are based on the concept of data "re-use" and all transform the output process into functions of an approximate Brownian motion process.The first class...

Conventional wage analyses suffers from a debilitating ailment: since there are no observable market wages for individuals who do not work, findings are limited to the sample of the population that are employed. Due to the problem of sample selection bias, using this subsample of working...

The City of Los Angeles and Caltrans would like a simulation testbed for testing alternate traffic management strategies in the Santa Monica corridor. This study assesses the data available for such a simulation and describes data needs, potential sources, and data preparation required. It...

This report presents a user's manual and a programmer's guide for the computer program MEDUSA. The program is capable of simulating the impacts of several vehicles. It assumes that the collision are elastic, and is consequently applicable for low relative velocity impacts. A theoretical...