An expected utility based cost-benefit analysis is in general fragile to its distributional assumptions. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions on the utility function of the expected utility model to avoid this. The conditions ensure that expected (marginal) utility remains finite also...

In searching for an appropriate utility function in the expected utility framework, we formulate four properties that we want the utility function to satisfy. We conduct a search for such a function, and we identify Pareto utility as a function satisfying all four desired properties. Pareto...

We specify a stochastic economy-climate model, adapting Nordhaus' deterministic economy-climate model by allowing for Weitzman-type stochasticity. We show that, under expected power utility, the model is fragile to heavy-tailed distributional assumptions and we derive necessary and sufficient...

Many regression models have two dimensions, say time (<italic>t</italic> = 1,…,<italic>T</italic>) and households (<italic>i</italic> = 1,…,<italic>N</italic>), as in panel data, error components, or spatial econometrics. In estimating such models we need to specify the structure of the error variance matrix <italic>Ω</italic>, which is of dimension <italic>T N</italic> × <italic>T N</italic>. If <italic>T N</italic> is...

We document a U-shaped relationship between income inequality and carbon dioxide emissions per capita, using a newly available panel data set on income inequality (GINI) with observations for 138 countries over the period 1960–2008. Our findings suggest that, for high-income countries with...

In the practice of program evaluation, choosing the covariates and the functional form of the propensity score is an important choice for estimating treatment effects. This paper proposes data-driven model selection and model averaging procedures that address this issue for the propensity score...

<Para ID="Par2">F22, Q54 </AbstractSection> Copyright Backhaus et al.; licensee Springer. 2015