Migration restrictions are pervasive and severe. Their worldwide enactment starting in the 1920's constituted a fundamental policy shift for a number of countries and for the world as whole. Yet, very little is currently known about the quantitative consequences of these barriers to labor...

This paper examines the performance of the U.S.~commercial banking industry over 1984--2002. Rather than measuring performance relative to the unknown (and difficult-to-estimate) boundary of the production set, performance for a given bank is measured relative to {\it expected} maximum output...

The Stock--Watson coincident index and its subsequent extensions assume a static linear one-factor model for the component indicators. Such assumption is restrictive in practice, however, with as few as four indicators. In fact, such assumption is unnecessary if one poses the index construction...

In this presentation I view a Malmquist productivity index as a theoretical index with desirable properties. I then discuss the properties of three approximations to it: an empirical Malmquist index, and Fisher and Tornqvist indexes. Next I discuss the decomposition properties of the theoretical...

We define a segregation ordering as a ranking of cities from most segregated to least segregated. \ We propose a set of basic properties that any reasonable segregation ordering should have. \ We then fully characterize the class of segregation orderings that satisfy these basic properties. \ We...

In applied econometric literature, the causal inferences are often made based on highly temporally aggregated or systematically sampled data. A number of theoretical studies have pointed out that temporal aggregation has distorting effects on causal inference and systematic sampling preserves...

The economies of the former Soviet Bloc experienced large declines in output during the decade of transition which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet there are many reasons to believe that measured output and official deflators provide a poor proxy for the change in real...

It is a well-established fact that corruption is a widespread phenomenon. An important aspect of corruption is that two parties act jointly in order to further their own interests at the expense of a third party. The response of the third party has a significant impact on the persistence of...

This paper analyzes the influence of domestic political considerations by disputing governments on the WTO enforcement outcome, following a violation ruling against the defendant. Since a different mix of import or export sectors in the disputing countries will benefit from the alternative...

This paper analyzes the impact of juvenile arrest, charge, conviction, and incarceration on an individual's propensity to graduate high school before the age of 20. The analysis is conducted using data from the NLSY97. I control for a large set of observable characteristics, including...