The cross-entropy approach is extended to the estimation of cointegrated equations. The entropy estimators for an appropriately constructed moment form, are asymptotically equivalent to Fully Modi�ed estimators since they converge to these estimates su¢ ciently quickly. The performance of the...

Models developed to investigate the impact of cotton subsidies have found that US support, by virtue of its absolute magnitude, is particularly damaging and responsible for most of the reduction in cotton-earning potential in developing countries. This has been used as an argument for reducing...

In this paper we examine the time series properties of nine non-renewable resources. In particular we are concerned with understanding the relationship between the number of structural breaks in the data and the nature of the resource price path, i.e. is it stationary or a random walk. To...

A dynamic ‘smooth transition’ Almost Ideal model is estimated for food consumption in the US. A Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is employed to map the posterior distributions and rejection sampling is used to evaluate and impose curvature restrictions at more than one point in the sample. The...

The relationship between calorie and nutrient (fat, protein, and carbohydrates) intake as a function of income is explored using data for 171 countries over two time periods 1990-1992 and 2003-2005. Three types of analysis are employed: i) nonparametric, ii) panel regressions, and iii) quantile...

The volatility of 19 agricultural commodity prices are examined at monthly and annual frequencies. All of the price series are found to exhibit persistent volatility (periods of relatively high and low volatility). There is also strong evidence of transmission of volatilities across prices....

An approach to incorporate spatial dependence into Stochastic Frontier analysis is developed and applied to a sample of 215 dairy farms in England and Wales. A number of alternative specifications for the spatial weight matrix are used to analyse the effect of these on the estimation of spatial...

This paper redefines technical efficiency by incorporating provision of environmental goods as one of the outputs of the farm within a multi-outptut distance function framework. Permanent and rough grassland area are used as a proxy for the provision of environmental goods. The multi-output...

We introduce and implement a reversible jump approach to Bayesian Model Averaging for the Probit model with uncertain regressors. This approach provides a direct estimate of the probability that a variable should be included in the model. Two applications are investigated. The �rst is the...

The impact of covariates on obesity in the US is investigated, with particular attention given to the role of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The potential endogeneity of participation in SNAP is considered as a potential problem in investigating its causal influence on obesity...