This paper studies first–order differentiability properties of the value function in concave dynamic programs. Motivated by economic considerations, we dispense with commonly imposed interiority assumptions. We suppose that the correspondence of feasible choices varies with the vector of state...

This paper finds that fertility responds to productivity differently depending upon the economy’s stage of development. At low levels of development, productivity increases will increase fertility while at the more advanced stages of development, productivity increases lower fertility. During...

This paper reports an experiment conducted to evaluate a ‘near continuous’ variant of the posted-offer trading institution, where the number of periods in a market session is increased by reducing sharply each period’s maximum length. Experimental results suggest that although decisions in...

In this paper, we study the interaction between a governmental security agency, such as the Transportation Security Agency, or the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a terrorist organization, such as Al Qaeda. The governmental agency wants to stop the terrorists, but first must infer...

Central banks adopt an inflation targeting policy with a goal to anchor inflation expectations. We argue that the expectations anchoring test developed in the context of the Krugman (1991) exchange rate targeting model is well-suited for inflation targeting applications. The test quantifies...

In this note we present r th order kernel density derivative estimators using canonical higher-order kernels. These canonical rescalings uncouple the choice of kernel and scale factor. This approach is useful for selection of the order of the kernel in a data-driven procedure as well as for...

This note derives the general form of the approximate mean integrated squared error for the q-variate, th-order kernel density r th derivative estimator. This formula allows for normal reference rule-of-thumb bandwidths to be derived. We give tables for some of the most common cases in the...

We consider a game in which schools compete to place graduates in two distinct ways: by investing in the quality of education, and by strategically designing grading policies. In equilib- rium, schools issue grades that do not perfectly reveal graduate abilities. This leads evaluators to have...

An extensive multi-disciplinary literature examines the effects of learning one’s HIV status on subsequent risky sexual behaviors. However, many of these studies rely on nonexperimental designs; use self-reported outcome measures, or both. In this study, we investigate the effects of a...

There is evidence for the long-run persistence of geographical variation in tolerance towards other ethnicities. However, existing studies of tolerance use data from countries with long-standing patterns of ethnic diversity, so it is unclear whether the inter-generational transmission is in...