Focusing on the Italian judicial system as our case study, we use Data Envelopment Analysis to estimate technical efficiency scores and reference values for policy makers. In detail, this work presents a comparative analysis of different model definitions to identify the most appropriate one,...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy on asset trading and production in a laboratory economy. Participants play the role of household investors who make consumption, labor, and investment decisions. Introducing asset markets to the economy does not generate significant real effects....

We consider a general framework where weaker patterns of identifcation may arise: typically, the data generating process is allowed to depend on the sample size. However, contrary to what is usually done in the literature on weak identification, we do not give up the efficiency goal of...

The theory of second best established that the effect on community welfare of any one policy change varies with the specific context in which that change occurs. In paper that has been frequently quoted to justify specific policies, Ng argues that fulfilling firstbest conditions piecemeal is an...

This paper studies exchange rate volatility within the context of the monetary model of exchange rates. We assume agents regard this model as merely a benchmark, or reference model, and attempt to construct forecasts that are robust to model misspecification. We show that revisions of robust...

This paper studies decision making by agents who value optimism, but are unsure of their environment. As in Brunnermeier and Parker (2005), an agent’s optimism is assumed to be tempered by the decision costs it imposes. As in Hansen and Sargent (2008), an agent’s uncertainty about his...

This paper extends the asymptotic theory of GMM inference to allow sample counterparts of the estimating equations to converge at (multiple) rates, different from the usual square-root of the sample size. In this setting, we provide consistent estimation of the structural parameters. In...

This paper studies adaptive learning with multiple models. An agent operating in a self-referential environment is aware of potential model misspecification, and tries to detect it, in real-time, using an econometric specification test. If the current model passes the test, it is used to...

We consider models defined by conditional moment restrictions under semi-strong identification. Identification strength is directly defined through the conditional mo- ments that flatten as the sample size increases. The framework allows for different iden- tification strengths across...