We analyze the forecasting performance of small mixed frequency factor models when the observed variables share stochastic trends. The indicators are observed at various frequencies and are tied together by cointegration so that valuable high fre- quency information is passed to low frequency...

We consider the covariance structure of health. Agents report their health status on the basis of a latent health stock that is determined by permanent and transitory shocks, and time invariant fixed effects. At age 25, permanent shocks account for 5% to 10% of the variation in health. At age...

The Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA) of 1886, a cabotage law, attempts to shield U.S. maritime shipping from foreign competition. It also applies to the U.S. cruise ship industry. The PVSA requires foreign cruise ships that carry passengers between U.S. ports to also stop at foreign ports....

Tourism demand elasticities are central to marketing, forecasting and policy work, but the wide array of occasionally counterintuitive estimates produced by existing empirical studies implies that some of those results may be inaccurate. To improve the precision of estimates, it is natural to...

This study investigates the impact of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) expansion in Hawaii on health insurance coverage among low-income children ages 0 to 18 using the Current Population Survey. We employ a difference-in-differences approach by construction of a control...

The importance of understanding the macro-economic impact of natural disasters cannot be overstated. Hurricane Iniki, that hit the Hawaiian island of Kauai on September 11th, 1992, offers an ideal case study to better understand the long-term economic impacts of a major disaster. Iniki is...

Many commentators have attributed the success of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the 1920s to the active use of open market operations to sterilize gold flows and to stabilize aggregate demand. We find, however, that the discount window was "open" during this period, thereby enabling...

This paper argues that the Korean governmentís policy with regard to financial deregulation and liberalization was endogenously determined, being largely influenced by the interest politics of perhaps the most powerful interest group in Korea, chaebol. It also argues that the cause of Koreaís...

The Fisher (1930) hypothesis suggests that a long run equilibrium relationship exists between the nonstationary series: nominal interest and expected inflation. Testing such a cointegrating relationship is complicated by the presence of the unobserved ex ante real rate of interest in residuals...

Two approaches to reform of agricultural prices in China are compared, one involving a two-tier combination of plan and market pricing, the other relying on land rent to recoup the tax on agriculture implicit in the two-tier system. The principal finding is that given the Chinese government's...