This paper has two objectives. First, we identify a problem with the ability of the discrete-continuous choice (DCC) framework and conditional demand functions to fully describe consumer preferences in the presence of kinked budget constraints. Second, we propose and illustrate an alternative,...

There is a consensus that the proportion of suicides committed with a firearm is the best proxy for gun ownership prevalence. Cerqueira et al. (2108) exploit the socioeconomic characteristics of suicide victims in order to develop a new and more refined proxy. It is based on the fixed effects of...

We asked 97 cigarette smokers to make a series of 12 binary choices between experimental cigarette packages with varying warnings and background colors. Each smoker had to decide which of the two packages contained cigarettes less risky for his health. We tested whether the smokers, confronted...

Amenities that vary across cities are typically valued using either a hedonic model, in which amenities are capitalized into wages and housing prices, or a discrete model of household location choice. In this paper, we use the 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) to value climate amenities...

We compare the performance of maximum likelihood (ML) and simulated method of moments (SMM) estimation for dynamic discrete choice models. We construct and estimate a simplified dynamic structural model of education that captures some basic features of educational choices in the United States in...

A small but rapidly growing percentage of the U.S. population uses e-cigarettes. Policymakers, especially the FDA, are concerned about their public health impact and thus are contemplating regulations. We provide empirical evidence to inform such policy choices. Specifically, we examine how the...

Electric vehicles offer the promise of reduced environmental externalities relative to their gasoline counterparts. We combine a theoretical discrete-choice model of new vehicle purchases, an econometric analysis of the marginal emissions from electricity, and the AP2 air pollution model to...

While measurement error in the dependent variable does not lead to bias in some well-known cases, with a binary dependent variable the bias can be pronounced. In binary choice, Hausman, Abrevaya and Scott-Morton (1998) show that the marginal effects in the observed data differ from the true ones...

Economists have long been aware of utility externalities such as a tendency to compare own income with others'. If welfare losses from income comparisons are significant, any governmental interventions that alter such attitudes may have large welfare consequences. We conduct an original online...

Mankiw [1982] explores the Permanent Income Hypothesis implication that durable expenditures follow an ARMA(1,1) representation. He finds that durable expenditures are represented by an AR(1) process which implies that the rate of depreciation of durables, under the PIH model, is 100%. This...