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Item Equilibrium information in credence goods; Oslo Metropolitan University seminar presentation(2022-09-22) Ma, Ching-To; Liu, TingItem The evidence of metal content for the attribution of the coins in the name of Chandra(gupta)(2022-06-25) Tandon, PankajTwo-day international conference on oriental numismatics in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the SocietyItem Metal analysis of Gupta gold coins(2022-09-15) Tandon, PankajItem 1918 every year: racial inequality in infectious mortality, 1906–1942(American Economic Association, 2022-05-01) Feigenbaum, James J.; Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren; Muller, Christopher; Wrigley-Field, ElizabethIn the first half of the twentieth century, racial inequality in the rate of death from infectious disease was immense. In every year from 1906 to 1920, Black Americans in cities died from infectious diseases at a rate higher than that of urban White Americans during the 1918 influenza pandemic. We decompose mortality into three broad causes of death to determine which causes were most influential. Our results suggest that racial inequality in infectious mortality was primarily driven by TB and flu--the two major respiratory causes of death. Waterborne causes, by contrast, played a minor role in explaining the disparity.Item Capital destruction and economic growth: the effects of Sherman’s March, 1850–1920(American Economic Association, 2022-10-01) Feigenbaum, James; Lee, James; Mezzanotti, FilippoUsing General Sherman’s March through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina during the Civil War, we study the effect of capital destruction on medium- and long-run local economic activity, and the role of financial markets in recovery. We show that the march’s capital destruction led to a large contraction in agricultural investment, farming asset prices, and manufacturing activity compared to neighboring counties. Elements of the decline in agriculture persisted through 1920. Exploiting variation in local access to antebellum credit, we argue that the underdevelopment of financial markets played a role in weakening the recovery.Item Measuring commuting and economic activity inside cities with cell phone records(MIT Press - Journals, 2021) Kreindler, Gabriel; Miyauchi, YuheiWe show how to use commuting flows to infer the spatial distribution of income within a city. A simple workplace choice model predicts a gravity equation for commuting flows whose destination fixed effects correspond to wages. We implement this method with cell phone transaction data from Dhaka and Colombo. Model-predicted income predicts separate income data, at the workplace and residential level, and by skill group. Unlike machine learning approaches, our method does not require training data, yet achieves comparable predictive power. We show that hartals (transportation strikes) in Dhaka reduce commuting more for high model-predicted wage and high skill commuters.Item Understanding the regional innovation system in LMT industries: the case of Turkey as an emerging market economy(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011-01-01) Erbas, BaharThis important book is about the origins and diffusion of innovation, in theory and in practice.Item Technoparks in Turkey: patent system perspective(Ege University, 2011) Erbas, BaharItem An economic valuation of a biotechnology R&D project in a developing economy(Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, 2012) Erbas, BaharItem Estimation in the presence of heteroskedasticty of unknown form: A Lasso-based approach(2023) González-Coya, Emilio; Perron, PierreWe study the Feasible Generalized Least-Squares (FGLS) estimation of the parameters of a linear regression model in the presence of heteroskedasticity of unknown form in the errors. We suggest a Lasso based procedure to estimate the skedastic function of the residuals. The advantage of using Lasso is that it can handle a large number of potential covariates, yet still yields a parsimonious specification. Using extensive simulation experiments, we show that our suggested procedure always provide some improvements in the precision of the parameter of interest (lower Mean- Squared Errors) when heteroskedasticity is present and is equivalent to OLS when there is none. It also performs better than previously suggested procedures. Since the fitted value of the skedastic function falls short of the true specification, we form confidence intervals using a bias-corrected version of the usual heteroskedasticity-robust covariance matrix estimator. These have the correct size and substantially shorter length than when using OLS. Our method is applicable to both cross-section (with a random sample) and time series models, though here we concentrate on the former.Item Change-point analysis of time series with evolutionary spectra(2023) Perron, Pierre; Casini, AlessandroItem Prewhitened long-run variance estimation robust to nonstationarity(Elsevier, 2023) Casini, Alessandro; Perron, PierreWe introduce a nonparametric nonlinear VAR prewhitened long-run variance (LRV) estimator for the construction of standard errors robust to autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity that can be used for hypothesis testing in a variety of contexts including the linear regression model. Existing methods either are theoretically valid only under stationarity and have poor finite-sample properties under nonstationarity (i.e., fixed-b methods), or are theoretically valid under the null hypothesis but lead to tests that are not consistent under nonstationary alternative hypothesis (i.e., both fixed-b and traditional HAC estimators). The proposed estimator accounts explicitly for nonstationarity, unlike previous prewhitened procedures which are known to be unreliable, and leads to tests with accurate null rejection rates and good monotonic power. We also establish MSE bounds for LRV estimation that are sharper than previously established and use them to determine the data-dependent bandwidths.Item Theory of low frequency contamination from nonstationarity and misspecification: consequences for HAR inference(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2023) Casini, Alessandro; Deng, Taosong; Perron, PierreItem Simultaneous bandwidths determiniation for DK-HAC estimators and long-run variance estimation in nonparametric settings(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Belotti, Federico; Casini, Alessandro; Catania, Leopoldo; Grassi, Stefano; Perron, PierreItem Anthropogenic influence on extremes and risk hotspots(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023-01-02) Estrada, Francisco; Perron, Pierre; Yamamoto, YoheiStudy of the frequency and magnitude of climate extremes as the world warms is of utmost importance, especially separating the influence of natural and anthropogenic forcing factors. Record-breaking temperature and precipitation events have been studied using event-attribution techniques. Here, we provide spatial and temporal observation-based analyses of the role of natural and anthropogenic factors, using state-of-the-art time series methods. We show that the risk from extreme temperature and rainfall events has severely increased for most regions worldwide. In some areas the probabilities of occurrence of extreme temperatures and precipitation have increased at least fivefold and twofold, respectively. Anthropogenic forcing has been the main driver of such increases and its effects amplify those of natural forcing. We also identify risk hotspots defined as regions for which increased risk of extreme events and high exposure in terms of either high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or large population are both present. For the year 2018, increased anthropogenic forcings are mostly responsible for increased risk to extreme temperature/precipitation affecting 94%/72% of global population and 97%/76% of global GDP relative to the baseline period 1961-1990.Item “Mechanization takes command?”: Powered machinery and production times in late nineteenth-century American manufacturing(Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2022-09) Atack, Jeremy; Margo, Robert A.; Rhode, Paul W.During the nineteenth century, U.S. manufacturers shifted away from the “hand labor” mode of production, characteristic of artisan shops, to “machine labor,” which was increasingly concentrated in steam-powered factories. This transition fundamentally changed production tasks, jobs, and job requirements. This paper uses digitized data on these two production modes from an 1899 U.S. Commissioner of Labor report to estimate the frequency and impact of the use of inanimate power on production operation times. About half of production operations were mechanized; the use of inanimate power raised productivity, accounting for about one-quarter to one-third of the overall productivity advantage of machine labor. However, additional factors, such as the increased division of labor and adoption of high-volume production, also played quantitatively important roles in raising productivity in machine production versus by hand.Item Experimental evidence of physician social preferences(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022-07-12) Li, Jing; Casalino, Lawrence P.; Fisman, Raymond; Kariv, Shachar; Markovits, DanielPhysicians' professional ethics require that they put patients' interests ahead of their own and that they should allocate limited medical resources efficiently. Understanding physicians' extent of adherence to these principles requires understanding the social preferences that lie behind them. These social preferences may be divided into two qualitatively different trade-offs: the trade-off between self and other (altruism) and the trade-off between reducing differences in payoffs (equality) and increasing total payoffs (efficiency). We experimentally measure social preferences among a nationwide sample of practicing physicians in the United States. Our design allows us to distinguish empirically between altruism and equality-efficiency orientation and to accurately measure both trade-offs at the level of the individual subject. We further compare the experimentally measured social preferences of physicians with those of a representative sample of Americans, an "elite" subsample of Americans, and a nationwide sample of medical students. We find that physicians' altruism stands out. Although most physicians place a greater weight on self than on other, the share of physicians who place a greater weight on other than on self is twice as large as for all other samples-32% as compared with 15 to 17%. Subjects in the general population are the closest to physicians in terms of altruism. The higher altruism among physicians compared with the other samples cannot be explained by income or age differences. By contrast, physicians' preferences regarding equality-efficiency orientation are not meaningfully different from those of the general sample and elite subsample and are less efficiency oriented than medical students.Item Reference points and redistributive preferences: experimental evidence(Elsevier, 2022-12-01) Fisman, Raymond; Kuziemko, Ilyana; Charite, Jimmy; Zhang, KeweiItem Agricultural diversity, structural change and long-run development: evidence from the U.S.(American Economic Association) Fiszbein, MartinThis paper examines the role of agricultural diversity in the process of development. Using data from US counties and exploiting climate-induced variation in agricultural production patterns, I show that mid-nineteenth-century agricultural diversity had positive long-run effects on population density and income per capita. During the Second Industrial Revolution, agricultural diversity fostered industrialization, diversification within manufacturing, patent activity, formation of new labor skills, and the expansion of knowledge- and skill-intensive industries. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that diversity spurs the acquisition of new ideas and new skills because of the presence of cross-sector spillovers and complementarities.Item Inequality and income dynamics in Germany(Econometric Society) Schmieder, Johannes; Drechsel-Grau, Moritz; Peichl, Andreas; Schmid, K.; Walz, Hannes; Wolter, StefanieWe provide a comprehensive analysis of income inequality and income dynamics for Germany over the last two decades. Combining personal income tax and social security data allows us – for the first time – to offer a complete picture of the distribution of annual earnings in Germany. We find that cross-sectional inequality rose until 2009 for men and women. After the Great Recession inequality continued to rise at a slower rate for men and fell slightly for women due to compression at the lower tail. We further document substantial gender differences in average earnings and inequality over the life-cycle. While for men earnings rise and inequality falls as they grow older, many women reduce working hours when starting a family such that average earnings fall and inequality increases. Men’s earnings changes are on average smaller than women’s but are substantially more affected by the business cycle. During the Great Recession, men’s earnings losses become magnified and gains are attenuated. Apart from recession years, earnings changes are significantly right-skewed reflecting the good overall state of the German labor market and increasing labor supply. In the second part of the paper, we study the distribution of total income including incomes of self-employed, business owners, and landlords. We find that total inequality increased significantly more than earnings inequality. Regarding income dynamics, entrepreneurs’ income changes are more dispersed, less skewed, less leptokurtic and less dependent on average past income than workers’ income changes. Finally, we find that top income earners have become less likely to fall out of the top 1 and 0.1 percent.