In theoretical literature on productivity, the disturbance terms of the stochastic frontier model are assumed to be independent random variables. In this paper, we consider a stochastic production frontier model with residuals that are both spatially and time-wise correlated. We introduce...

This paper addresses the issue of threshold effects between public debt and economic growth in the Caribbean. The main finding is that there exists a threshold debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 55–56 percent. Moreover, the debt dynamics begin changing well before this threshold is...

In this paper, we present a model that can be viewed as an extension of the traditional Tobit model. As opposed to that specific model, ours also accounts for the the fixed costs of car ownership. That extension is needed since being carless is an option for many households in societies that...

This paper empirically examines the relationship between fiscal decentralization and public sector efficiency. A country-level dataset is used to measure public sector efficiency in delivering education and health services and the new indices are regressed on well-established decentralization...

Interaction terms are often misinterpreted in the empirical economics literature by assuming that the coefficient of interest represents unconditional marginal changes. I present the correct way to estimate conditional marginal changes in a series of non-linear models including (ordered)...

The diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is becoming a central policy issue for developing countries, being identified by international policy-makers and scholars as an important driver of knowledge, innovation and economic growth. We analyze ICT access patterns in...

In this note I show that a typo in Stata’s help file may have contributed in wrongly estimating marginal changes after truncated and censored regression models. This has significant implications for empirical practice and results from published studies may need to be reconsidered.

Air pollution is an externality whose health costs are high. In our paper we have evaluated the private cost or cost of suffering due to morbidity associated with this pollution. The contingent valuation method (CVM) has allowed us to estimate the average monthly private cost of illness for a...