We propose a flexible nonparametric density estimator for panel data. One possible areas of application is estimation of crop yield distributions whose data tend to be short panels from many geographical units. Taking into account the panel structure of the data can likely improve the efficiency...

This paper extends the partially linear varying coefficient model to contain time trend and nonstationary variables as regressors. We use the profile likelihood method to estimate both time trend coefficient in the linear component and the functional coefficients in the nonlinear component and...

We present an Exponential Series Estimator (ESE) for multivariate densities. The ESE has an appealing information-theoretic interpretation and ensures positive density estimates. We show that if the logarithm of a density p(x) defined on a bounded support has r continuously differentiable...

We derive general distribution tests based on the method of Maximum Entropy density. The proposed tests are derived from maximizing the di®erential entropy subject to moment constraints. By exploiting the equivalence between the Maximum Entropy and Maximum Likelihood estimates of the general...

We investigate the evolution of global welfare in two dimensions: income per capita and life expectancy. First, we estimate the marginal distributions of income and life expectancy separately. More importantly, in contrast to previous univariate approaches,we consider income and life expectancy...

We propose a partially adaptive estimator based on information theoretic maximum entropy estimates of the error distribution. The maximum entropy (maxent) densities have simple yet flexible functional forms to nest most of the mathematical distributions. Unlike the non-parametric fully adaptive...

Using state-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we investigate the effects of household food-away-from-home and food-at-home expenditures on overweight rates, obesity rates, and combined rates. Our random effects model estimates suggest that food-away-from-home...

We use a new method to estimate China’s income distributions using publicly available interval summary statistics from China’s largest national household survey. We examine rural, urban, and overall income distributions for each year from 1985-2001. By estimating the entire...

A variety of parametric and semiparametric models produce qualitatively similar estimates of government policies’ effects on income distribution and welfare (as measured by the Gini, standard deviation of logarithms, relative mean deviation, coefficient of variation, and various Atkinson...

In this paper we study the relationship between the oil price and stock market index of various countries between 1982 and 2007. We exclude oil and gas stock companies from the stock indices to remove the obvious direct linkage. Oil price series are converted into local currency to account for...