This paper examines the interactions between household members’ utilities when deciding whether or not to join the labor market. Using asymptotic least squares, we analyze a sample of 5425 couples living in France in 1997. By comparing the results obtained with more standard methods, we find...

This paper reports labour market returns to education in Bangladesh using data from recent nationwide household survey. Returns are estimated separately for rural and urban samples, males, females and private sector employees. Substantial heterogeneity in returns is observed; e.g. estimates are...

This paper attempts to provide an empirical determination of the Philippine central bank's (BSP) recent monetary policy stance, before and after its adoption of the inflation targeting framework, as revealed by its interest rate setting behavior. Employing Clarida, Gali, and Gertler's (1998,...

In the financial crisis literature, it is usually argued that, contrary to the case of currency crises, building a time series index to identify banking crisis episodes is highly difficult, particularly because of the lack of reliable data on banking sector variables (non-performing loans,...

This paper employs ordered probit, partial adjustment, and vector error correction models to characterize price adjustments in the Philippine retail gasoline market since its deregulation. It finds that pricing decisions of oil firms depend significantly on eight weeks of previous changes in...

When more than one component or activity is needed to produce the final product, a firm may use proprietary standards or adopt a common standard to integrate these components. We call these closed and open firms respectively, and develop a model of industry evolution to study the process by...

This paper analyzes optimal pricing for information goods under incomplete information, when both unlimited-usage (fixed-fee) pricing and usage-based pricing are feasible, and administering usage-based pricing may involve transaction costs. It is shown that offering fixed- fee pricing in...

Wine brokers are wholesale intermediaries. They belong to the category of the matchmaker intermediaries. These middlemen are not well known. Their role is to help buyers and sellers of bulk wine to meet and transact. Assuming that wine merchants appeal to brokers because they reduce transaction...