Lower intergenerational income mobility for blacks is a likely cause behind the persistent interracial gap in economic status in the United States. However, few studies have analyzed black-white differences in intergenerational income mobility and the factors that determine these differences....

This paper demonstrates how Goal Programming/Constrained Regression can be used for cross-checking results from standard econometric models as well as a stand alone methodology in empirical production analysis. For illustration, we re-examine Berndt and Wood's (BW) seminal study of the U.S....

This paper describes a non-parametric, unconditional, hyperbolic quantile estimator that unlike traditional non-parametric frontier estimators is both robust to data outliers and has a root-n convergence rate. We use this estimator to examine changes in the efficiency and productivity of U.S....

We propose a novel approach to model serially dependent positive-valued variables which realize a non-trivial proportion of zero outcomes. This is a typical phenomenon in financial time series observed at high frequencies, such as cumulated trading volumes. We introduce a flexible point-mass...

This paper relaxes the assumption of homogeneous rates of return to schooling by employing nonparametric kernel regression. This approach allows us to examine the differences in rates of return to education both across and within groups. Similar to previous studies we find that on average blacks...

In this paper we present a new approach to evaluate the environmental efficiency of decision making units. We propose a model that describes a two-stage process consisting of a production and an end-of-pipe abatement stage with the environmental efficiency being determined by the efficiency of...