The use of robust regression estimators has gained popularity among applied econometricians. The main argument invoked to justify the use of the robust estimators is that they provide efficiency gains in the presence of outliers or non-normal errors. Unfortunately, most practitioners seem to be...

Helpman, Melitz, and Rubinstein (2008)�HMR�present a rich theoretical model to study the determinants of bilateral trade flows across countries. The model is then empirically implemented through a two-stage estimation procedure. This note seeks to clarify some econometric aspects of the...

This note provides a structural interpretation for the index of price changes synchronization proposed by Fisher and Konieczny (2000, Economics Letters, 68, 271-277) and shows that it can be used to test the hypothesis of uniform staggering.

In this paper we critically reappraise some measures of the importance of time-dependent price setting rules and propose an alternative way to gauge the significance of this type of price setting behaviour. The merits of the proposed measure are highlighted in an application using micro-data....

In this paper we analyse the ability of time and state dependent price setting rules to explain durations of price spells or the probability of changing prices.Our results suggest that simple time dependent models cannot be seen as providing a reasonable approximation to the data and that state...

In this note we reappraise the measure of the importance of time-dependent price setting rules suggested by Klenow and Kryvtsov (2005, "State-Dependent or Time-Dependent Pricing: Does It Matter for Recent U.S. Inflation?," Bank of Canada Working Paper 05-4). Furthermore, we propose an...

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We extend the simulation results given in Santos Silva and Tenreyro (2006, �The log of gravity,� The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88, 641-658) by considering data generated as a finite mixture of gamma variates. Data generated in this way can naturally have a large proportion of zeros...

This paper proposes a test to check the specification of models with unobserved individual effects integrated out by quadrature and also a simple way of increasing the flexibility of this type of model. The results of a Monte Carlo study and an application using a well-known data set illustrate...