Is public expenditure productive? Is there a shortfall or excess in public capital investment? We address these old issues in light of new econometric tools. It is argued that the Cobb-Douglas specification that ignores nonlinearity inherent in the functional relationship of the production...

This paper uses nonparametric kernel methods to construct observation-specific elasticities of substitution for a balanced panel of 73 developed and developing countries to examine the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis. The exercise shows some support for capital-skill complementarity,...

In this paper nonparametric techniques are used to estimate higher-order moments of technical efficiency. The procedures developed in this paper allow the moments to be estimated with relative ease, while at the same not requiring restrictive assumptions on the distribution of inefficiency. The...

In this paper, we employ a partially linear nonparametric additive regression estimator, with recent U.S. Current Population Survey data, to analyze returns to schooling. Similar to previous research, we find that blacks and Hispanics have higher rates of return on average. However, for married...