We examine the (potentially nonlinear) relationship between inequality and growth using a method which does not require an a priori assumption on the underlying functional form. This approach reveals a plateau completely missed by commonly used (nonlinear) parametric approaches - the economy...

Although the theoretical trade-off between the quantity and quality of children is well-established, empirical evidence supporting such a causal relationship − particularly on child health − is limited. We use two measures of child health to asses the quantity-quality trade-off across the...

For OECD countries there is an intriguing variety of combinations between total fertility rate (TFR) and female labor force participation rate (FPR) suggesting the existence of multiple equilibria. This paper provides a differential game framework where the employment choices by husband and wife...

In this paper, we propose a new concept of convergence which is based on the metric entropy measure recently proposed by Granger et al. (2004, Journal of Time Series Analysis 25, 649--69) to investigate economic convergence in China. This entropy measure compares whole distributions of growth...

In this paper, we propose a new concept of convergence which is based on the metric entropy measure recently proposed by Granger et al. (2004) to investigate economic convergence in China. This entropy measure compares whole distributions of growth rates across individual provinces. Separately,...

In this article, we evaluate the role of elections in governors' state tax policy making. Does it matter for state taxes whether the governor is a Democrat or Republican and whether she is eligible for re-election or faces a binding term limit? Using a Regression Discontinuity Design and a panel...

We consider the problem of testing for perfect rankings in ranked set sampling (RSS). By using a new algorithm for computing the probability that specified independent random variables have a particular ordering, we find most powerful rank tests of the null hypothesis of perfect rankings against...

Using LCV score data, we find that female legislators favor stricter environmental policies than do their male counterparts. Moreover, gender-corrected estimates suggest that voters do not push environmental policy towards the middle, but rather select the ideologically closest candidate.

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...

We propose an alternative method for estimating the nonlinear component in semiparametric panel data models. Our method is based on marginal integration that allows us to recover the nonlinear component from an additive regression structure that results from the first differencing...