Many kinds of economic behavior appear to be governed by discrete and occasional individual choices. Despite this, econometric partial adjustment models perform relatively well at the aggregate level. Analyzing the classic employment adjustment problem, we show how discrete and occasional...

We present sufficient conditions for monotone matching in environments where utility is not fully transferable between partners. These conditions involve complementarity in types not only of the total payoff to a match, as in the transferable utility case, but also in the degree of...

Trends in inter-generational economic mobility in Finland are analyzed using panel data from 1950 through 1999 on more than 200 thousand sons and daughters born between 1930 and 1970. A significant decline is estimated in the inter-generational transmission elasticity from the 1930 birth cohort...

We analyze race discrimination in labor markets in which wage offers are posted. If employers with job vacancies receive multiple applicants, they choose the most qualified but may choose arbitrarily among equally qualified applicants. In the model, firms post wages, workers choose where to...

Recent work on trend-cycle decompositions for US real GDP yields the following puzzling features: methods based on Unobserved Components models, the Beveridge- Nelson decomposition, the Hodrick-Prescott filter and others yield very different cycles which bear little resemblance to the NBER...

This paper introduces bias-corrected estimators for nonlinear panel data models with both time invariant and time varying heterogeneity. These include limited dependent variable models with both unobserved individual effects and endogenous explanatory variables, and sample selection models with...

Risk adjustment deters selection and helps to assure fair and efficient payments among health insurers or capitated provider groups. However, since conventional risk adjustment allocates funds among insurers or regions according to current population health status, it does not reward — indeed,...

This paper proposes an algorithm to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of structural parameters in discrete games with multiple equilibria. The method combines a genetic algorithm (GA) with a pseudo maximum likelihood (PML) procedure. The GA searches efficiently over the huge space of possible...

In this paper, I propose and test a simple technology-based theory of firms’ sensitivities to aggregate shocks. I show that when the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is below unity, low profitability firms are more sensitive to aggregate shocks, i.e. to the business cycle....

Experiments on time preference document numerous .ndings that seem to con- tradict the standard model of intertemporal choice. These .ndings are based on how subjects choose between delayed rewards. This paper shows that if subjects integrate such rewards with their consumption plans, and expect...