This paper shows how to generate the joint distribution of correlated random variables with specified marginal distributions. For cases where the marginal distributions are either normal or lognormal, it shows how to calculate analytically the correlation of the underlying normal distributions...

We evaluate some aspects of the finite sample distribution of an instrumental variables estimator of a first order condition of the Holt et al. (1960) linear quadratic inventory model. We find that for some but not all empirically relevant data generating processes and sample sizes, asymptotic...

Using a dynamic linear equation that has a conditionally homoskedastic moving average disturbance, we compare two parameterizations of a commonly used instrumental variables estimator (Hansen (1982)) to one that is asymptotically optimal in a class of estimators that includes the conventional...

We are interested in estimating the average effect of a binary treatment on a scalar outcome. If assignment to the treatment is independent of the potential outcomes given pretreatment variables, biases associated with simple treatment-control average comparisons can be removed by adjusting for...

One of the areas of policy research where randomized field trials have been utilized most intensively is welfare reform. Starting in the late 1960s with experimental tests of a negative income tax and continuing through current experimental tests of recent welfare reforms, randomized evaluations...

Data on health care expenditures, length of stay, utilization of health services, consumption of unhealthy commodities, etc. are typically characterized by: (a) nonnegative outcomes; (b) nontrivial fractions of zero outcomes in the population (and sample); and (c) positively-skewed distributions...

This essay examines the idea and potential of a computational approach to theory,' discusses methodological issues raised by such computational methods, and outlines the problems associated with the dissemination of computational methods and the exposition of computational results. We argue that...

Investigators of social differentials in health outcomes commonly augment incomplete micro data by appending socioeconomic characteristics of residential areas (such as median income in a zip code) to proxy for individual characteristics. However, little empirical attention has been paid to how...

In applied econometric work, analysts are concerned often with estimation of and inferences about interaction effects, e.g. 'Does the magnitude of the effect of z1 on y depend on z2? ' This paper develops tests for and proper interpretation of various forms of interaction effects in one...

This paper focuses on developing and adapting statistical models of counts (non-negative integers) in the context of panel data and using them to analyze the relationship between patents and R&D expenditures. The model used is an application and generalization of the Poisson distribution to...