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Presents a list of several books related to anthropology. "Beyond Lines of Control: Performance and Politics on the Disputed Borders of Ladakh, India"; "Creole Economics: Caribbean Cunning Under the French Flag"; "Rethinking the Mediterranean"; "Landlords and Lodgers: Socio-Spatial Organization in an Accra Community."

These comments focus on some issues raised in the papers by Dimand, Peart and Levy, Cot, and Leonard. These papers are fascinating, but not without weaknesses. It is argued that Dimand's presentation of what he calls the “general principle” of classical economics is misconceived. There is a confusion in this paper between the classical view of equal capacity and the much newer concept of equally rational actual performance. Peart and Levy discuss the idea of unequal capacity for pleasure in Edgeworth, but do not draw a link back to the idea in J. S. Mill of different qualities of pleasure. Cot and Leonard provide informative accounts of the American eugenic movement and its links to progressivism, but with an insufficient degree of distinction between the various positions and agendas that were concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent paper by Faria ( Bulletin of Economic Research, 57 (2005), pp. 1–12) deals with the interplay between editors and authors. This research is a welcome addition to the literature on formal analyses of academic markets. This note points out a potential discrepancy in Faria's derivation of the equilibrium journal quality and clarifies the conditions under which journal quality responds to changes in editor's impatience and in author's impatience. Specifically, the effect of a change in author's impatience on journal quality is shown to be not unambiguous. Some implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Soros's reflexivity theory is quite compatible with second order cybernetics. Indeed his work shows how to apply ideas in second order cybernetics to economics, finance and political science. This paper briefly reviews three theories of reflexivity in cybernetics. It provides an introduction to Soros's version of reflexivity theory and reviews applications in economics and finance. Soros's approach to economics is based on different assumptions about information and about human behaviour. His approach to finance is more holistic than most current work in finance. He does not emphasize mathematical models but rather sees finance as a human player game with himself as a participant. The paper concludes that Soros's work is a very important contribution to and expansion of contemporary social science. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses estimation methods for models including an endogenous spatial lag, additional endogenous variables due to system feedback and an autoregressive or a moving average error process. It extends Kelejian and Prucha's, and Fingleton and Le Gallo's feasible generalized spatial two-stage least squares estimators and also considers HAC estimation in a spatial framework as suggested by Kelejian and Prucha. An empirical example using real estate data illustrating the different estimators is proposed. The finite sample properties of the estimators are finally investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Resumen. Este artículo discute métodos de estimación para modelos incluyendo un intervalo espacial endógeno, variables endógenas adicionales debido a retroalimentación del sistema y un proceso autorregresivo o uno de error de media móvil. Amplia Kelejian y Prucha's, y los estimadores de mínimos cuadrados bietápicos espaciales generalizados factibles de Fingleton y Le Gallo y considera también la estimación HAC en un marco espacial tal y como sugieren Kelejian y Prucha. Proponemos un ejemplo empírico utilizando datos de bienes inmuebles ilustrando los diferentes estimadores. Las propiedades en muestras finitas de los estimadores se estudian finalmente mediante simulación de Monte Carlo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses economic evaluations by distinguishing evaluative statements from actual value judgments. From this basis, it compares four solutions to the value neutrality problem in economics. After rebutting the strong theses about neutrality (normative economics is illegitimate) and non-neutrality (the social sciences are value-impregnated), the paper settles the case between the weak neutrality thesis (common in welfare economics) and a novel, weak non-neutrality thesis that extends the realm of normative economics more widely than the other weak thesis does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ludwig von Mises is often regarded as a “champion” of laissez faire. This characterization seems to contradict Mises's clear statement that economics is value free. The aim of this paper is to resolve this apparent contradiction. We accomplish this by distinguishing, as Mises did, between the advocacy of specific laissez-faire policies and the advocacy of a laissez-faire ideology vis-à-vis the alternative ideologies of socialism and interventionism. Mises argued that the logic of a value-free economics could be used to show that socialist and interventionist policies would not achieve a goal that the socialists and interventionists implicitly or explicitly aim to achieve, that of progress in terms of material wealth for the members of society. Thus, Mises resolved the contradiction by shifting the debate from the welfare analysis of particular policies to a logical analysis of the ends of a particular ideology and the means available to achieve those ends. In a seminal paper in neo-Austrian economics, Murray Rothbard criticized Mises. We analyze Rothbard's argument partly as a means of elucidating Mises's views and argue that Rothbard misinterpreted Mises and quoted him out of context. Rothbard failed to adequately support his claim that Mises held the beliefs that Rothbard attributed to him. Moreover, Rothbard's paper undermined the value freedom that Mises regarded as a crucial characteristic of economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transaction cost economics (TCE), as developed and operationalized by Oliver Williamson, is one of the most prominent and influential developments in the social sciences. In recent years, on the basis of many empirical studies, it has been claimed that the evidence has corroborated TCE. If so, this would have major implications for the debate between TCE and other approaches to understanding the nature of the firm. In this paper we submit the most prominent TCE empirical work to critical scrutiny, on the basis of the standards and predictions in Williamson's own writings. We find a much more mixed picture, with few studies giving unambiguous support to Williamson's TCE. Furthermore, a significant number of the studies can be reinterpreted in terms of a competence or capabilities approach. We conclude that the empirical evidence does not decisively support Williamson's TCE and we stress the importance of an empirical program of joint testing of rival theoretical approaches. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

David Newbery's (1975) paper on the economics of free-access resources devotes considerable space to critical comments on my (1972) paper on the same topic. I shall deal first with Newbery's criticisms, all of which I believe to be invalid. I shall then assess his distinction between "over-exploitation" and "congestion", and show the close relation between Newbery's principal theorem and the main point of my own analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates experimentally a market inspired by two strands of literature: on herd behaviour in non-market situations, and on the aggregation of private information in markets. The first strand suggests that socially undesirable herd behaviour may result when information is private; the second suggests that in a market context the price mechanism may cause the private information to be aggregated correctly and efficiently. This latter therefore suggests that socially undesirable behaviour may be eliminated through the market. We test this experimentally, and find that socially undesirable behaviour may result: the market is misled by agents privately optimizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two previously reported experiments, Loomes, Sumner and Sugden have found that choices are systematically non-transitive, following a pattern of 'cycling asymmetry' predicted by regret theory. However, there are other potential explanations for these observations. This paper reports four experiments designed to discriminate between alternative explanations. There are three main findings. First, when the original experiments are replicated, the same cycling asymmetry is found. Second, this pattern is not the result of event-splitting effects. Third, both the frequency and the asymmetry of cycles are greater when choice problems are presented in act/event matrices than when the options are described separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do economists reach a conclusion on a given policy issue? One way to answer the question is to survey economists at large. Another is to look at the published judgments of economists who have gone on the record. Relative to an anonymous survey, going on the record makes for much greater accountability, and presumably more personal responsibility. I discuss 11 studies of economists' published judgments. Several of them show greater support for liberalization than found among economists at large. This is offered as evidence of what I call the forsaken-liberty syndrome. I discuss the nature of this test of such syndrome and point to some of the larger questions to which it relates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the economic views of Larry Moss, a former editor-in-chief of the publications. The author speaks as one who knew Moss for many years and maintained a cordial professional relationship with him. Topics discussed include a 2001 paper Moss wrote on Ricardian economics that the author believes represents an important contribution to understanding 19th century economics, points of disagreement the author had with Moss on that subject, and correspondence between the two men over reviews they wrote for each other's books.

Most economists today live in a two-factor world: There is just labor and capital. Land, so central to classical political economy, has been swallowed into capital and “disappeared.” This paper surveys some of the better historical treatments of land and capital, their interrelations, and how they support modern Georgists and Greens who want land to reappear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so. If you learn how to look at data in the right way, you can explain riddles that otherwise might have seemed impossible.’ (Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner 2005, Freakonomics, William Morrow, p. 14) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fisher's virulent positions on such themes as “race degeneration”, the necessity of sterilization measures for certain categories of the American population, and his urgent call for the control of the genetic quality of new immigrants are hardly consistent with the opalescent subtlety of academic disputes over the nature of capital and interest. Although Fisher repeats it often: in his work, this question of the nature of capital and interest is directly linked to eugenic assumptions and analysis. This second body of Fisherian work illuminates the strong epistemological and theoretical references in Fisher's work as an economist. This paper addresses this question through three major themes: the constant denunciation of a «racial decay» of the American population and its corollary: the project of setting up a «scientific humaniculture»; the plea against the eugenic effects of World War I, and the then haunting question of the closing of the «Golden Door». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One objective of regulatory investigations of possible improprieties by publicly traded corporations and the imposition of sanctions if malfeasance is found is to deter other corporations from engaging in such behavior. Although the magnitude of the deterrent effect is an empirical issue, this paper provides an a priori analysis as to why the deterrent effect will be blunted in many cases, why its strength will not be uniform over time, and why, based in part on prospect theory, the deterrent effect will be weaker for ongoing questionable practices than for practices in their formative stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In these comments, Professor Smith discusses the preceding group of symposium papers and reminds us that eugenic ideas are still part of the society in which we live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transition from cardinal to ordinal utility. We begin with the egalitarian utilitarianism of J. S. Mill and Herbert Spencer, in which everyone was supposed to count as one. That is their phrase to explain how the happiness of existing people was to be maximized. We compare Spencer's goal with Darwin's goal of the “general good,” in which the number of perfect people was to be maximized. Spencer's goal was egalitarian, while Darwin's entailed biological perfection or hierarchy. We consider Edgeworth's hedonic calculus, in which the notion of hierarchy enters economics. For Edgeworth, agents have differential capacities for happiness. Throughout, we consider normative aspects of Darwin's work, in particular Darwin's challenge to the early utilitarianism of Mill and Spencer. We suggest that the Paretian principle returns utilitarianism to its egalitarian roots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the views of the author on a commentary given by Gunning on the opinion of Rothbard and Mises on normative and positive economics. It is now time to bring forth a critical analysis of Gunning's contribution, for I believe him to be in error in many of his specific claims. He starts off attributing to Mises the view that Mises' reconciliation of laissez-faire advocacy and economic vertfreiheit stemmed from his conception of the goal of economics. He does this without benefit of any support from Mises himself. This is surprising since Gunning is very thorough throughout the remainder of his paper in citing not only Mises but Rothbard as well, to underpin his contentions about the views of these two authors. First, he states that Rothbard argued that economics is the value-free handmaiden of ethics. Can one logically defend laissez-faire capitalism without recourse to value statements in the premises of the argument? Rothbard says not. At best, one can state that free enterprise leads to peace and prosperity and that socialism to the very opposite, but without a normative base, why ever should the former be preferred to the latter? One can say that most people do prefer these goals, and thus must favor the economic freedom that alone makes their attainment possible, but again, there is no necessity for such preferences. A man fully steeped in the niceties of Austrian economics might still reject these ends, and not be forced to endure the pain of self-contradiction. Mises did not succeed in defending these notions, and Rothbard's criticism remains impregnable, at least to the attempts of Gunning to rend them asunder.

In this essay, James Tobin discusses Fisher's). This essay was first published in theAmerican Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 87 (May 1997): pp. 430–432. We are grateful to the American Economic Association for permission to republish this essay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These comments were presented at a session entitled“Echoes of Henry George in Modern Analysis” held at the 2002 meetings of the Southern Economic Association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent criminological research has produced inconsistent findings in its attempts to establish a statistical relationship between economic marginalization and the spatial distribution of crime rates. This paper contends that this inconsistency is partly attributable to the way in which economic marginalization has been conceptually defined and measured. By focusing strictly on unemployment and poverty as the processes that produce economic marginalization, researchers have ignored other important economic dynamics that can marginalize workers and provide an environment conducive to crime. Further, commonly used indicators of economic marginalization, such as the unemployment rate and poverty rate, fail to measure the full range of dynamics that produce marginalization. It is our contention that employment volatility represents an important source of economic marginalization that can help foster higher levels of criminal activity. This hypothesis is tested using regression procedures to analyze the effects of employment volatility measures and frequently identified structural correlates of crime on change in the rate of property crime offenses across 683 U.S. metropolitan counties during the 1980–1983 period. The findings suggest that high levels of employment volatility are conducive to the maintenance of higher levels of property crime in general, as well as less severe forms of property crime such as larceny, when such crimes are examined on an individual basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the impact of the initial condition on the problem of testing for unit roots. To this end, we derive a family of optimal tests that maximize a weighted average power criterion with respect to the initial condition. We then investigate the relationship of this optimal family to popular tests. We find that many unit root tests are closely related to specific members of the optimal family, but the corresponding members employ very different weightings for the initial condition. The popular Dickey-Fuller tests, for instance, put a large weight on extreme deviations of the initial observation from the deterministic component, whereas other popular tests put more weight on moderate deviations. Since the power of unit root tests varies dramatically with the initial condition, this paper explains the results of comparative power studies of unit root tests. The results allow a much deeper understanding of the merits of particular tests in specific circumstances, and a guide to choosing which statistics to use in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Watts of Purdue University organized this symposium as a session at the 2002 Southern Economic Association Meetings in New Orleans. He invited five economists, who are specialists in economic education and other areas, to comment on William Becket's paper, "How to make economics the sexy social science," which first appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education (December 7, 2001). Their comments and Professor Becker's response appear below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the invitation made by "American Journal of Economics and Sociology," (AJES) for research papers on the political economy of natural resource economics with a special emphasis on what is known about these processes in light of public policy and geopolitical change. Economic discussion during the last part of the 20th century included a sharp debate about whether the finiteness of natural resource availability imposed a serious limitation on economic growth and development. A selection will be invited for inclusion in a January 2005 gala issue of AJES. The AJES is a 62-year-old refereed journal that sets no ideological standards for its collaborators or contributors and is committed to constructive synthesis in the social sciences. A hard cover version of the volume is also planned. Authors interested in participating should submit a 600-word Abstract to the journal editor. The deadline for submissions of the abstracts is November 30, 2003. The proposed final version of the paper will be due on February 1, 2004.

Applied welfare economists are interested in an index of preference that can be computed directly from observable demand data, as opposed to unobserved compensated demand functions. Marshallian-Dupuit consumer surplus and the Divisia index are two such classical indices, but it is well-known (Samuelson, 1942, 1965; Chipman and Moore, 1976, 1980) that the line integrals that define these indices are path-independent only in either of two highly unrealistic cases: (a) homothetic preferences, or (b) parallel preferences with respect to the numeraire (Chipman and Moore, 1980). This paper defines the generalized Divisia quantity index and proves it is path-independent if preferences are quasi-homothetic or, equivalently, Engel curves are linear. The relation to other indices is examined, and useful aggregation results are stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information about the invitation made by the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology," for articles from economists and sociologists on Talcott Parsons's contribution to a dialogue between economics and sociology, the economic ideas discussed in his works, and the potential of his theories for illuminating a multitude of issues located on the border between the two disciplines. More than 20 years after his death, Talcott Parsons is still regarded as the most influential American sociologist. So broad was the scope of his theoretical inquiry, it transcended sociology and crossed into fields of other social sciences, of which economics played a particularly important role in Parsons's intellectual career. It would not be an exaggeration to say that building a bridge between economics and sociology was one of the major goals of Parsons's intellectual life. Authors interested in participating should submit a 600-word abstract to the journal editor, Professor Laurence S. Moss. The deadline for the submission of the abstract is November 30, 2004. The proposed final version of the paper will be due on February 1, 2005.

This study ranks Australian economics departments according to their average research productivity during 1998–2002. The highest ranked departments are those at ANU, JCU, Melbourne, Tasmania and UWA. We also rank departments according to the variability of research productivity among their members, the assumption being that, other things being equal, the less variable is productivity within a department, the better. Research productivity is found to be highly skewed within all departments. However, in general, research productivity is more (less) evenly distributed within those departments that have relatively high (low) average research productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published QUARTERLY in the interest of constructive synthesis in the social sciences, under grants from the F rancis N eilson Fund and the R obert S chalkenbach F oundation. Founded in 1941 Volume 64 July, 2005 Number 3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws out the respects in which advances in psychological research challenge various aspects of economic theory and the policy prescriptions conventionally flowing from the theory. The first challenge--concerning decision making--is being taken quite seriously by the economics profession. The thriving school of economic thought it has given rise to is behavioral economics, and the psychologist who did most to inspire this school, Daniel Kahneman, was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002. The second challenge to conventional economics--from the burgeoning happiness research--is taking longer to win converts among economists. Economics should not be abolished but that it, rather than the economy, is what is in desperate need of radical reform. Neoclassical economics is a product of the state of man's knowledge during the 18th and 19th centuries, and has actually lost some of its human subtleties since then as it has been made more mathematical. It needs to assimilate our now vastly superior understanding of human decision-making and motivations. The community will always need the advice of people who specialize in studying the economic aspects of people's lives, but those specialists need to rebuild their models using more realistic assumptions about human behavior. This would give the people an economics fit for humans.

Published QUARTERLY in the interest of constructive synthesis in the social sciences, under grants from the FrancisNeilsonFund and the RobertSchalkenbachFoundation.Founded in 1941Volume 64 April, 2005 Number 2 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the problem of measuring intellectual influence based on data on citations between scholarly publications. We follow an axiomatic approach and find that the properties of invariance to reference intensity, weak homogeneity, weak consistency, and invariance to splitting of journals characterize a unique ranking method. This method is different from those regularly used in economics and other social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social sciences offer two distinct approaches to understanding society. One originated with the Scottish moral philosophers and shaped the discipline of economics. The other emerged from the French enlightenment and influenced the study of sociology. The two approaches are based on radically different perceptions of man and man's relation to society. This paper explores these alternative hypotheses and examines some major implications. It concludes that the hypothesis reaching back to the Scottish philosophers provides the basis for a unified approach in the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative activity has been an important source of change in the American economy by providing a flow of new products and cost-saving machinery and techniques. Economists have long been concerned with the possible effects of market structure in shaping the firm's commitment to bring forth new innovations. The J.A. Schumpeter hypothesis is one prominent example. The foundations and implications of this theory are explored in this paper. Empirical evidence is then offered which questions the ability of the Schumpeter hypothesis to explain interfirm differences in innovative behavior. The absolute size of the company can be measured by its total sales or employment. Innovations arc encouraged by absolute size as a result of realizing economies of scale in research and development which increases the productivity of innovative activity. In addition there are accompanying pecuniary benefits such as increased access to the nation's credit markets which in turn provides the necessary liquidity for R & D projects. The use of market share as an explanatory variable br innovauve acuvuy automatically implies interest in overall market concentration. It is certainly plausible to believe that such factors as economies of scale in production and marketing which encourage the growth of one firm would provide the identical stimuli to its competitors as well. In addition, other fIrms in the industry might try to achieve parity in size by resorting to defensive mergers.

This paper presents a set of axioms which characterize a family of price mechanisms for consumption goods, including marginal cost prices and Aumann-Shapley prices. By strengthening one of the axioms, marginal cost prices are characterized and by requiring that cost is shared the Aumann-Shapley prices are characterized. A discussion of the economic interpretation of the axioms is also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the concepts of identifiability and of exact and consistent estimability for econometric models are introduced in a rather general framework, and the relations between these concepts are investigated. As a main result we obtain conditions under which identifiability and consistency are equivalent almost everywhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a maximum likelihood procedure for obtaining consistent and asymptotically efficient parameter estimates in economics. The problem posed in the paper should be distinguished from the Tobit specification although similar to the Tobit situation. The effect of education and intelligence on the earnings of workers in low level jobs with relatively low levels of education is discussed. Job productivity in some settings is affected by education and intelligence. Although education and intelligence are taken into prime consideration, there are other factors being considered that affect productivity.

The article reports on developments related to economics. Professor Ken Wallis retired from the editorial board of "The Economic Record" effective in the December 2005 issue of the periodical. The prize for the best paper was awarded at the Australian Conference of Economists in Melbourne. The Economic Society of Australia is inviting participants to the 35th Australian Conference of Economists at Curtin University of Technology. There will be keynote lectures, special sessions with invited speakers and contributed paper sessions.

The reliability of human behavior in situations where cooperation is beneficial for all but is hindered by individual incentives not to cooperate is a central research question in economics and the social sciences. Little is known about how the interaction results of a subject with one partner may affect this subject's behavior when subsequently matched with a new partner. We extend this knowledge by studying the development of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma experiment. After several rounds, each subject is matched with a new partner. We analyse whether the interaction outcomes with the first partner lead subjects to change their behavior when they interact with the second partner. We focus on niceness as introduced by Axelrod and find statistically significant effects. Mutual cooperation with the first partner is positively correlated with the continuation of a nice strategy, whereas mutual defection leads subjects to give up their nice strategy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work has demonstrated the effect of social information in the voluntary provision of public goods in the field. In this article, we demonstrate the boundary conditions of the effect. We show that when social information is too extreme, it ceases to influence individual contributions. The results highlight a natural limitation of the social information effect, and provide a characterization of the most effective levels for an organization to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory emerges through interaction among interested participants, with the content of those theories being a product of spontaneous ordering and not scientific planning. At any moment, it is reasonable to expect various theoretical formulations to be in play, some typically receiving greater attention than others. As with spontaneous orders in general, the institutional arrangements within which theorizing occurs are influential though not determinative over the characteristics of theories. In this respect, a distinction is made between theories directed at understanding social processes as open and creative and theories directed at controlling what are treated as closed and deterministic processes. This distinction is illustrated with respect to theorizing about macro phenomena and public phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the analysis used by seventeenth-century political economist Thomas Hobbes to justify his view that humans naturally drift towards a state of affairs in which each competes ruthlessly against the other and life is solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short. Sections include a summary of Hobbes' outlook on human nature, a discussion of a solution to the problem Hobbes presented in his book "Leviathan," and a presentation demonstrating similarity between Hobbes' techniques and those used by classical and modern economics.

The article discusses the wicked problems in applied economics. It offers information on the characteristics of postnormal science, which will provide information on the alternative policies that should be created to address the challenges in applied economics. Wicked problems include terrorism, global climate change, nuclear energy, ecological health and water resource management. It is mentoned that the challenges are influenced by social and political factors, as well as biophysical complexities.

The article focuses on the political economy of public goods and services in the U.S. It encourages economists to analyze questions of public involvement in public and private activities where public participation is an issue. It is noted that public perceptions have shifted and redefined public goods more as private goods. Wassily Leontief praises agricultural economics implying an advantage to this economic sub-discipline in granting assessments of the kind being proposed. He stressed that the extensive agricultural statistics, close collaboration with other agricultural and social sciences and early utilization of advanced methods of mathematical statistics as a complement to empirical research.

This article studies estimation of a conditional moment restriction model with the seminonparametric maximum likelihood approach proposed by Gallant and Nychka ( Econometrica 55 (March 1987), 363–90). Under some sufficient conditions, we show that the estimator of the finite dimensional parameter θ is asymptotically normally distributed and attains the semiparametric efficiency bound and that the estimator of the density function is consistent under L2 norm. Some results on the convergence rate of the estimated density function are derived. An easy to compute covariance matrix for the asymptotic covariance of the θ estimator is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends the widely used ordered choice model by introducing stochastic thresholds and interval-specific outcomes. The model can be interpreted as a generalization of the GAFT (MPH) framework for discrete duration data that jointly models durations and outcomes associated with different stopping times. We establish conditions for nonparametric identification. We interpret the ordered choice model as a special case of a general discrete choice model and as a special case of a dynamic discrete choice model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the pioneering work by Daniel McFadden, utility-maximization-based multinomial response models have become important tools of empirical researchers. Various generalizations of these models have been developed to allow for unobserved heterogeneity in taste parameters and choice characteristics. Here we investigate how rich a specification of the unobserved components is needed to rationalize arbitrary choice patterns in settings with many individual decision makers, multiple markets, and large choice sets. We find that if one restricts the utility function to be monotone in the unobserved choice characteristics, then up to two unobserved choice characteristics may be needed to rationalize the choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A smoothed likelihood function is used to construct efficient estimators for some semiparametric models that contain unknown density functions together with parametric index functions. Smoothing the likelihood makes maximization with respect to the unknown density functions more tractable. The method is used to show the efficiency gains from knowledge of population shares in three cases: (1) binary choice; (2) binary choice when only one outcome is sampled, supplemented by random sampling of the explanatory variables; and (3) linear regression, where the shares are defined by a threshold value of the dependent variable. Semiparametric efficiency is achieved both for parametric components and for a class of functionals of the error density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]