The empirical literature on production and cost functions is divided into two strands: 1) the neoclassical approach that concentrates on model parameters, 2) the frontier approach that decomposes the disturbance term to a symmetric noise term and a positively skewed inefficiency term. We propose...

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a major innovation in the estimation of causal effects of policy interventions and programs in a comparative case study setting. In this paper, we demonstrate that the data-driven approach to SCM requires solving a bilevel optimization problem. We show how...

Synthetic control method (SCM) identifies causal treatment effects by constructing a counterfactual treatment unit as a convex combination of donors in the control group, such that the weights of donors and predictors are jointly optimized during the pre-treatment period. This paper demonstrates...

Synthetic control method (SCM) identifies causal treatment effects by constructing a counterfactual treatment unit as a convex combination of donors in the control group, such that the weights of donors and predictors are jointly optimized during the pre-treatment period. This paper demonstrates...

The present paper demonstrates that treating multidestination trips (MDT) as single‐destination trips does not involve any systematic upward or downward bias in consumer surplus (CS) estimates because the direct negative effect of a price increase (treating MDT as a single‐destination trip)...

Environmental cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) refers to social evaluation of investment projects and policies that involve significant environmental impacts. Valuation of the environmental impacts in monetary terms forms one of the critical steps in ECBA. We propose a new approach for environmental...

The literature of productive efficiency analysis is divided into two main branches: the parametric Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This paper attempts to combine the virtues of both approaches in a unified framework. We follow the SFA...

The relationship between speed and income is established in a microeconomic model focusing on the trade-off between travel time and the risk of receiving a penalty for exceeding the speed limit. This is used to determine when a rational driver will choose to exceed the speed limit. The...

We formulate a model of reference-dependent preferences based on the marginal rate of substitution at the reference-point of a reference-free utility function. Using binary choices on the trade-off between money and travel time, reference-dependence is captured by value functions that are...

This paper establishes that every random utility discrete choice model (RUM) has a representation that can be characterized by a choice-probability generating function (CPGF) with specific properties, and that every function with these specific properties is consistent with a RUM. The choice...