In economics, rank-size regressions provide popular estimators of tail exponents of heavy-tailed distributions. We discuss the properties of this approach when the tail of the distribution is regularly varying rather than strictly Pareto. The estimator then over-estimates the true value in the...

We show that Bertrand et al.'s (QJE 2015) finding of a sharp drop in the relative income distribution within married couples at the point where wives start to earn more than their husbands is unstable across different estimation procedures and varies across contexts. We apply the estimators by...

We consider semiparametric asymmetric kernel density estimators when the unknown density has support on [0, ∞). We provide a unifying framework which contains asymmetric kernel versions of several semiparametric density estimators considered previously in the literature. This framework allows...

Several papers have recommended the Champernowne distribution to describe operational risklosses. This paper compares the tail performance of the Champernowne transformed kernel density estimator, the generalized Pareto distribution (gpd) and the g-and-h distribution. We introduce a new tail...

There is increasing demand for models of time-varying and non-Gaussian dependencies for mul- tivariate time-series. Available models suffer from the curse of dimensionality or restrictive assumptions on the parameters and the distribution. A promising class of models are the hierarchical...

In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate the effect of a counterfactual change in the unconditional distribution of a single covariate on the unconditional distribution of an outcome variable of interest. Both fixed and infinitesimal changes are considered. We show that such effects are...

In a treatment effect model with unconfoundedness, treatment assignments are not only independent of potential outcomes given the covariates, but also given the propensity score alone. Despite this powerful dimension reduction property, adjusting for the propensity score is known to lead to an...

This paper improves a kernel-smoothed test of symmetry through combining it with a new class of asymmetric kernels called the generalized gamma kernels. It is demonstrated that the improved test statistic has a normal limit under the null of symmetry and is consistent under the alternative. A...

We study nonparametric estimation of density functions for undirected dyadic random variables (i.e., random variables de?ned for all unordered pairs of agents/nodes in a weighted network of order N). These random variables satisfy a local dependence property: any random variables in the network...

We estimate the evolution of the conditional joint distribution of economic and financial conditions in the United States, documenting a novel empirical fact: while the joint distribution is approximately Gaussian during normal periods, sharp tightenings of financial conditions lead to the...