Covariate benchmarking is an important part of sensitivity analysis about omitted variable bias and can be used to bound the strength of the unobserved confounder using information and judgments about observed covariates. It is common to carry out formal covariate benchmarking after...

In this paper, I discuss three aspects of the Frisch-Waugh-Lovell theorem. First, I show that the theorem holds for linear instrumental variables estimation of a multiple regression model that is either exactly or overidentified. I show that with linear instrumental variables estimation: (a)...

Covariate benchmarking is an important part of sensitivity analysis about omitted variable bias and can be used to bound the strength of the unobserved confounder using information and judgments about observed covariates. It is common to carry out formal covariate benchmarking under the...

In economics, it is common to use dimensioned variables, e.g. earnings (measured in dollars per year), as arguments in the logarithmic function. This is conceptually problematic because a logarithmic function can only take dimensionless quantities as its argument. One way to avoid this...

This paper develops a simple theoretical model to analyze Marx's theory of ground rent. Using the model, I demonstrate two important results. First, if we take capital as exogenous, then total ground-rent can be decomposed into the three components: differential rent of the first variety (DRI),...

Attempts to use commodities to construct theories of value and use such value theory to claim that, in capitalism, commodities can be exploited, just like labour is, rest on two conceptual aws: (a) failure to distinguish between labour and labour-power; and (b) failure to distinguish...

In this paper we present estimates of the world profit rate using country-level data from the Extended Penn World Table 7.0 and industry-level data from the World Input Output Database. The country-aggregated world profit rate series spans the period from 1960 to 2019, and the...

Using unit-level data from various rounds of the Employment and Unemployment Survey of the National Sample Survey Organisation, we present the first consistent time series of average real farm income per cultivator for 18 major Indian states for 1987-88, 1993-94, 1999-00, 2004-05, 2007-08,...

Since the early 2000s, many Indian states started reforming their agricultural marketing policies and allowed private traders to buy directly from farmers outside the state-regulated market system. The experience of these states during the period 2000 - 2012 can shed light on the impact of...