Economic models are meant to provide a framework to describe real-world economic activities. In principle, how well a model performs this task can be evaluated by how close the model's simulated activities track the observed ones. A necessary first step in simulating a model is to choose values...

This paper examines the combined influences of detrending and time aggregation on the measurement of business cycles. The approximate band- pass filter of Baxter and King (1999) performs relatively well in the sense that it retains the basic shape of disaggregate spectra and cospectra when...

This paper incorporates inventory dynamics into an analysis of market power. Using a model in which each firm accounts for the effect of its current action on the current and future actions of itself and its competitors, we show that measures of market power that ignore inventory dynamics are...

This paper builds a dynamic forward-looking model describing the approximate ten-year cattle cycle. The theoretical model improves on existing models by (1) keeping track of the age distribution of the capital stock, (2) allowing for heterogeneous expectations, and (3) recognizing that cow-calf...

Two recent studies have shown that “cheap talk” is an effective means of eliminating positive hypothetical bias in experimental and field-auction settings. We further investigate the ability of cheap talk to mitigate positive hypothetical bias in a CVM phone survey administered to over 4,000...

This paper provides a new explanation for the hump-shaped age- consumption profile observed in household data. Standard life-cycle models are based on an optimization problem that spans the entire life expectancy. Alternatively, we examine the consumption profile of an individual with a shorter...

In this paper, we estimate the social net benefits of curbside recycling. Benefits are estimated using survey data on household willingness to pay (WTP) from over 4,000 households across 40 western U.S. cities. We calibrate WTP for hypothetical bias using an experimental design that contrasts...

There is very little evidence on the effects of the minimum wage on prices in the international literature and none whatsoever for developing countries. This paper analyzes the effects of the minimum wage on prices using monthly Brazilian household and price data from 1982 to 2000 aggregated at...

A key area of focus in the economic reform process and the design of a favorable business environment is labor market legislation. Montenegro has obviously failed in this area. After nearly 13 years since the beginning of the transition process, or five years since the beginning of Economic...

In many countries the shadow employment has a very high priority among policymakers. A new time series for this component of the labour market has been recently released by the Italian institute of statistics. Taken together they give the motivation and the occasion for a fresh analysis of the...