This paper examines an empirical regularity found in many societies: that family influences on the probability of transiting from one grade level to the next diminish at higher levels of education. We examine the statistical model used to establish the empirical regularity and the intuitive...

The Balassa-Samuelson model, which explains real exchange rate movements in terms of sectoral productivities, rests on two components. First, for a class of technologies including Cobb-Douglas, the model implies that the relative price of nontraded goods in each country should reflect the...

A decade ago the Economist began an annual survey of Big Mac prices as a guide to whether currencies are trading at the right exchange rates. This paper asks how well the hamburger standard has performed. Although average deviations from absolute Big Mac parity are large for several currencies,...

This paper explores a new direction for empirical models of exchange rate determination. The motivation arises from two well documented facts, the failure of log-linear empirical exchange rate models of the 1970's and the variability of risk premiums in the forward market. Rational maximizing...

Fama(1984) analyzed the variability and the covariation of risk premiums and expected rates of depreciation. We employ three statistical techniques that do not suffer from a potential bias in Fama's analysis, but we nevertheless confirm his findings. In contrast to his interpretation the results...

During the 1970s an extensive theoretical literature has developed analyzing market determination of freely floating exchange rates. At the same time, there has been extensive and continuous intervention in the market by central banks. Exchange rates have not been floating freely; they have been...

During the 1970s an extensive theoretical literature has developed analyzing market determination of freely floating exchange rates. At the same time, there has been extensive and continuous intervention in the market by central banks. Exchange rates have not been floating freely;they have been...

If price decisions are taken neither continuously nor in perfect synchronization, the process of adjustment of all prices to a new nominal level will imply temporary movements in relative prices. It might then well be that, to avoid these movements in relative prices, each price setter will want...

This paper surveys new methods for estimatifg labor supply functions. A unified framework of analysis is presented. All recent models of labor supply are special cases of a general index function model developed for the analysis o dummy endogenous variables