The paper provides a careful, analytical account of Trygve Haavelmo's unsystematic, but important, use of the analogy between controlled experiments common in the natural sciences and econometric techniques. The experimental analogy forms the linchpin of the methodology for passive observation...

We consider the nonstationary fractional model Delta^d Xt = epsilon t with epsilon t i.i.d.(0;sigma^2) and d 1/2. We derive an analytical expression for the main term of the asymptotic biasof the maximum likelihood estimator of d conditional on initial values, and we discussthe role of the...

Intelligence about transnational terrorist threats is generally gathered by national agencies. I set up and analyze a game theoretic model to study the implications of national intelligence gathering for the provision of domestic (defensive) counterterrorism when two countries are facing a...

Based on a general framework for computing the aggregate human capital stock under heterogeneity across population cohorts, the paper derives aggregate human capital stocks in the whole population and in the labor force, and relates these variables to average years of schooling and average work...

There is widespread evidence that monetary policy exerts asymmetric effects on output over contractions and expansions in economic activity, while price responses display no sizeable asymmetry. To rationalize these facts we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model where households' utility...

We propose a discrete-time multivariate model where lagged levels of the process enter both the conditional mean and the conditional variance. This way we allow for the empirically observed persistence in time series such as interest rates, often implying unit-roots, while at the same time...

This paper analyzes the importance of social ties for eating behavior of US youth. We propose a novel approach that addresses identification of social endogenous effects. We overcome the problem of measuring the separate impact of endogenous and contextual effects on individual Body Mass Index...

We show that societies with a history of irrigation-based agriculture have been less likely to adopt democracy than societies with a history of rainfed agriculture. Rather than actual irrigation, the empirical analysis is based on how much irrigation potentially can increase yields. Irrigation...

I establish a positive relationship between family ties and civic virtues, as captured by disapproval of tax and benefit cheating, corruption, and a range of other dimensions of exploiting others for personal gain. I find that family ties are a complement to social capital, using within country...

We experimentally investigate information aggregation through majority voting when some voters are biased. In such situations, majority voting can have a "?dark side"?, i.e. result in groups making choices inferior to those made by individuals acting alone. We develop a model to predict how two...