A methodology is developed and applied to compare the performance of publicly funded agencies providing treatment for alcohol abuse in Maine. The methodology estimates a Wiener process that determines the duration of completed treatments, while allowing for agency differences in the...

Method of Simulated Moments (MSM) estimators introduced by McFadden (1989)and Pakes and Pollard (1989) are of great use to applied economists. They are relatively easy to use even for estimating very complicated economic models. One simply needs to generate simulated data according to the model...

We seek to determine the causes and magnitudes of network externalities for the automated clearinghouse (ACH) electronic payments system. We construct an equilibrium model of customer and bank adoption of ACH. We structurally estimate the parameters of the model using an indirect inference...

Standard discrete choice models such as logit, nested logit, and random coefficients models place very strong restrictions on how unobservable product space increases with the number of products. We argue (and show with Monte Carlo experiments) that these restrictions can lead to biased...

We provide a framework for evaluating and improving multivariate density forecasts. Among other things, the multivariate framework lets us evaluate the adequacy of density forecasts involving cross-variable interactions, such as time-varying conditional correlations. We also provide conditions...

The problem of how to control for covariates is endemic in evaluation research. Covariate-matching provides an appealing control strategy, but with continuous or high-dimensional covariate vectors, exact matching may be impossible or involve small cells. Matching observations that have the same...

The regression discontinuity (RD) data design is a quasi-experimental design with the defining characteristic that the probability of receiving treatment changes discontinuously as a function of one or more individual characteristics. This data design occasionally arises in economic and other...

This paper presents estimates of key preference parameters of the Epstein and Zin (1989, 1991) and Weil (1989) (EZW) recursive utility model, evaluates the model's ability to fit asset return data relative to other asset pricing models, and investigates the implications of such estimates for the...

This paper studies the ability of a general class of habit-based asset pricing models to match the conditional moment restrictions implied by asset pricing theory. We treat the functional form of the habit as unknown, and to estimate it along with the rest of the model's finite dimensional...