This paper develops an informational model of litigation in which court decisions are a function of legal representation. In this model, resource constraints determine how much parties expend on legal representation. The allocation of resources across parties influences court decisions in two...

We develop an unobserved component model in which the short-term interest rate is composed of a stochastic trend and a stationary cycle. Using the Nelson-Siegel model of the yield curve as inspiration, we estimate an extremely parsimonious state-space model of interest rates across time and...

Standard estimates of the NAIRU or natural rate of unemployment are subject to considerable uncertainty. We show in this paper that using multiple indicators to extract an estimated NAIRU cuts in half uncertainty as measured by variance. The inclusion of an Okun’s Law relation is particularly...

The fact that weak instruments lead to spurious inference is now widely recognized. In this paper we ask whether spurious inference occurs more generally in weakly identified models. To distinguish between models where spurious inference will occur from those where it does not, we introduce the...

Studies of development and change in partisan fortunes in the US emphasize epochs of partisan stability, separated by critical events or turning points. A major empirical issue that has plagued the study of American political development is the estimation of the critical moments and durations of...

We use the inflation premium—the difference between nominal and real interest rates—as a proxy for expected inflation in the context of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve. Using data from inflation-indexed and nominal bonds we estimate a forward-looking Phillips curve for the United Kingdom...