This study investigates whether personal taxes are related to asset valuations. The effective tax rate of investment income fluctuated considerably since federal income taxes were introduced. The main result of the paper demonstrates that there is an economically and statistically significant relationship between asset valuations and personal tax rates. Stock valuations tend to be higher when t...

This paper analyzes the process of real economic convergence in the New Member States (NMS) bein g formerly centrally planned economies, using nonparametric methods instead of conventional parametric measurement tools like beta and sigma models. This methodological framework allows the examining of the relative income distribution in different periods of time, the number of modes of the density...

Out-of-sample forecasting experiments are used as an alternative to looking at F-statistics when examining whether money, interest rates or the commercial paper/T-bill spread provide information content for subsequent movements in output, real and nominal personal income, the CPI and the PPI. Here a variable provides information if it improves the forecast of the explained variable. Employing t...

This report presents data on the income and poverty status of families and persons in the US for 1986. Data were compiled from information collected in the March 1987 Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census. 60,500 households were surveyed nationwide. Highlights of the data follow. 1) In 1986, median family income was $29,460, 4.2% higher than the 1985 median of $27,...

The existence of durable goods implies that the welfare flow from consumption cannot be directly associated with total consumption expenditures. As a result, tests of standard theories of consumption (such as the Permanent Income Hypothesis, or PIH) typically focus on nondurable goods and services. Specifically, these studies generally relate real consumption of nondurable goods and services to...

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the effects of volatility of the fundamental determinants of trade on trade flows in México during the period 1991-2008. Our import and export functions are based on the well known imperfect substitute goods model of trade. We focus on the effects of real exchange rate as well as measures of relative prices and real income and their associated conditional ...

Irish perinatal mortality rates have been falling steadily for a number of decades but evidence from the 1980s showed pronounced differentials in mortality rates across socio-economic groups. Between 1995 and 2006 Irish gross national product increased from 60 per cent of the EU average to 110 per cent. Real incomes increased across the income distribution during this period but income inequali...

T he main objective of this study is to estimate the spatial spillover effects of the economic growth among the selected countries of MENA region. For this purpose, the Spatial Durbin Model in the framework of spatial dynamic panel data was estimated during the period of 1970-2010. The spatial Diagnostic tests affirmed the occurrence of spatial positive autocorrelation phenomenon for...

The fundamental assumption of the Malthusian model of pre-industrial society is that reproductive success increased with income. However, the direct evidence for this proposition for any pre-industrial society is surprisingly weak. Indeed most tests of this assumption for pre-industrial England, France and Japan have failed to detect any link between either mortality and real incomes or fertili...

Lettau and Ludvigson (2001a) show that the consumption-wealth ratio—the error term from the cointegration relation among consumption, net worth, and labor income—forecasts stock market returns out of sample. In this paper, we reexamine their evidence using real-time data. Consistent with the early authors, we find that consumption and labor income data are subject to substantial revisions, whic...