We compare nonparametric instrumental variables (IV) models with linear models and 2SLS methods when dependent variables are discrete. A 2SLS method can deliver a consistent estimator of a Local Average Treatment Effect but is not informative about other treatment effect parameters. The IV...

In many economic models, objects of interest are functions which satisfy conditional moment restrictions. Economics does not restrict the functional form of these models, motivating nonparametric methods. In this paper we review identification results and describe a simple nonparametric...

The control function approach is a convenient method of estimation in simultaneous equation systems. This requires that the system can be expressed in triangular form with variables satisfying a conditional mean independence restriction. Linear simultaneous models with additive errors can always...

The newsworthiness of an event is partly determined by how unusual it is and this paper investigates the business cycle implications of this fact. Signals that are more likely to be observed after unusual events may increase both uncertainty and disagreement among agents. In a simple business...

Does credit availability exacerbate asset price inflation? Are there long run consequences? During the farm land price boom and bust before the Great Depression, we find that credit availability directly inflated land prices. Credit also amplified the relationship between positive fundamentals...

Existing empirical evidence suggests that real exchange rates exhibit hump-shaped dynamics. I show that this is a robust fact across nine large, developed economies. This fact can help explain why sticky price business cycle models have been unable to match the persistence of the real exchange...

Post-1980 US data trace out a stable long-run money demand relationship of Cagan's semi-log form between the M1-income ratio and the nominal interest rate, with an interest semielasticity below 2. Integrating under this money demand curve yields estimates of the welfare costs of modest...

This paper presents a model in which price setting firms decide what to pay attention to, subject to a constraint on information flow. When idiosyncratic conditions are more variable or more important than aggregate conditions, firms pay more attention to idiosyncratic conditions than to...

Shocks to the real price of oil may reflect oil supply shocks, shocks to the global demand for all industrial commodities, or demand shocks that are specific to the crude oil market. Each shock has different effects on the real price of oil and on US macroeconomic aggregates. Changes in the...