Liquidity constraints and partial risk-sharing are often indistinguishable. However, I illustrate using artificial data from two different model economies how band spectrum regression can be used to distinguish between lack of consumption insurance and liquidity constraints. JEL Classifications: D1, E21.

This paper surveys the empirical evidence on causal effects of educatio studies in the light of their underlying identifying assumptions. We work o which lead to rather different interpretations of the estimated causal effect extend causal return estimates are informative regarding educational policy Despite the substantial methodological differences, we have to conclude t and do not deviate su...

This paper proposes a fully nonparametric procedure to evaluate the effect of a counterfactual change in the distribution of some covariates on the unconditional distribution of an outcome variable of interest. In contrast to other methods, we do not restrict attention to the effect on the mean. In particular, our method can be used to conduct inference on the change of the distribution functio...

Currently available asymptotic results in the literature suggest that matching estimators have higher variance than reweighting estimators. The extant literature comparing the finite sample properties of matching to specific reweighting estimators, however, has concluded that reweighting performs far worse than even the simplest matching estimator. We resolve these puzzling conclusions. Specifi...

This research analyses through the use of instrumental variables estimation whether democracy has an effect on variables belonging to three different categories: fiscal policy, inequality in income distribution and political instability. It shows there is no stable relation between democracy and fiscal policy variables between countries of the sample in the 1978-1988 period. Democracy, on the o...

In regression discontinuity models, where the probability of treatment jumps discretely when a running variable crosses a threshold, an average treatment effect can be nonparametrically identi ed. We show that the derivative of this treatment effect with respect to the threshold is also nonparametrically identi ed and easily estimated, in both sharp and fuzzy designs. This marginal threshold tr...

EU enlargement is supposed to entail profound impact on the location of economic activities in Europe. Although there is concern about the implications of enlargement for regional disparities in the EU, corresponding empirical results are still rare. The objective of this analysis is to provide empirical evidence on enlargement effects with a special focus on border regions in the EU27 since th...

This paper proposes a rank-based estimator for a location parameter in the binary choice model under a monotonic index and symmetry condition, given an initial Jnconsistent estimator for the slope parameter. The estimator converges at the usual parametric rate. Compared with existing estimators, no nonparametric smoothing is needed here. A small Monte Carlo study illustrates the usefulness of t...

Losers and Losers: Some Demographics of Medical Malpractice Tort Reforms Our research examines individual differences in the effects of medical malpractice tort reforms on pre-trial settlement speed and settlement amounts by age and most likely settlement size. Findings of note include that, unlike previously assumed, both absolute and percentage losses from tort reform are small for infants in...

This paper uses control variables to identify and estimate models with nonseparable, multidimensional disturbances. Triangular simultaneous equations models are considered, with instruments and disturbances independent and reduced form that is strictly monotonic in a scalar disturbance. Here it is shown that the conditional cumulative distribution function of the endogenous variable given the i...