This paper details a methodology used to construct a capstone course for the economics major. The capstone course should require students to utilize key concepts that they have learned. The lack of a meaningful topic, however, detracts from a showcase for student understanding. The author...

Machine learning (ML) is a novel method that has applications in asset pricing and that fits well within the problem of measurement in economics. Unlike econometrics, ML models are not designed for parameter estimation and inference, but similar to econometrics, they address, and may be better...

The two basic models used for constructing price indexes for durable assets (such us real estate assets) have been the hedonic and repeated sales models. Case and Quigley (1991)-CQ proposed a generalized least squares (GLS) procedure to estimate a combined (single and repeated sales information)...

Previous research has studied the effects of welfare payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program on incentives and behavior. By lowering the cost of raising children, states with larger welfare payments have higher rates of fertility among poor women, an adverse...

In this paper, we conduct a set of Monte Carlo sampling experiments to examine the effect of design characteristics on the inequality restricted maximum entropy (RME) estimator. We generate data under varying design characteristics, and estimate the parameters using maximum entropy and least...

The effects of including different kinds of prior information in estimation of the probit model is examined within the framework of Bayesian inference. Of interest is the effect on posterior information for coefficients, probabilities and elasticities. In a model designed to explain choice...

We use Stata to obtain the linear maximum entropy estimator developed by Golan, Judge and Miller (1996). We use the STATA optimize function to illustrate maximum entropy estimation in an unrestricted linear regression model. Next, we estimate the model with parameter inequality restrictions to...

The paper presents a theoretical model that seeks to answer the question of why former squatter settlements tend to upgrade/redevelop at a slower pace than otherwise similar settlements originating in the formal sector. We argue that squatter settlers' initial strategy to access urban land...