Yoonseok Lee - Job Market Candidate

We have Yoonseok Lee from Yale as a job candidate Wendesday 1 February. The seminar will *not* be in the usual room, but instead in Savery 110 C. The time remains the same: 2.00 - 3.30. The title of his paper is "Nonparametric Estimation of Dynamic Panel Models". Abstract: This paper develops nonparametric estimation of dynamic panel models using series approximations. We extend the standard linear dynamic panel model to a nonparametric form that maintains additive fixed effects, where the fixed effects are eliminated by the within transformation. This approach generalizes earlier work on cross sectional series estimation by Newey (1997). Nonlinear homogenous Markov process is properly conditioned to be a stationary β-mixing. Convergence rates and the asymptotic distribution of the series estimator are derived when both the cross section sample size and the length of the time series are large and of comparable sizes. Just as for pooled estimation in linear dynamic panels, an asymptotic bias is present, which reduces the mean square convergence rate compared with the cross section case. To tackle this problem, bias correction is developed using a heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) type estimator. Some extensions of this framework are also considered under exogenous variables and partial linear models. The limit theory and bias correction formulae follow by extending the main results. Finally, an empirical study on nonlinearities in cross-country growth regressions is presented to illustrate the use of the nonparametric dynamic panel models with fixed effects. After bias correction, the convergence hypothesis is true only for countries in the upper income range and for OECD countries.

Kyoo il Kim - Job Candidate

Kyoo il Kim is a job candidate for our open position as a micro-econometrician.He is from University of California, Los Angeles, and will be here Friday 27 January. His job talk will take place in Savery 302 at 2.00 PM. Title and abstract are below:

Semiparametric Estimation of Signaling Games

ABSTRACT: This paper studies an econometric modeling of a signaling game with two players where one player has two types. In particular, we develop an estimation strategy that identifies the payoffs structure and the distribution of types from data of observed actions. We can achieve uniqueness of equilibrium using a refinement, which enables us to identify the parameters of interest. In the game, we consider non-strategic public signals about the types. Since the mixing distribution of these signals are nonparametrically specified, we estimate the model using a sieve conditional MLE or a sieve minimum distance estimation. In both methods, we achieve the consistency and the root n-asymptotic normality of the structural parameter estimates. As an alternative, we allow for the possibility of multiple equilibria, without using an equilibrium selection rule. As a consequence, we adopt a set inference allowing for multiplicity of equilibria. Then, we illustrate an empirical example of a signaling game between publicly traded firms and investors where firms have one of two types: market leader or follower. In this game, firms signal their types through strategic emphasis on R&D or market spending. The estimation result suggests that defining a leader firm in terms of R&D spending without consideration of strategic behaviors can be misleading.

Sung Jae Jun - Job Candidate

Sung Jae Jun, Brown University, will be at the department on Friday 20 January. He is a job candidate for the position as micro-econometrician. His job talk takes place at 2:00pm in Savery 302. Title and abstract below. Weak Identification Robust Tests in an Instrumental Quantile Model

ABSTRACT: We consider the linear instrumental quantile model proposed by Chernozhukov and Hansen (2001, 2005a, 2005b). Since it is never clear for what quantile effects the given instruments are most informative, we develop a testing procedure that is robust to identification quality in the GMM framework. In order to reduce the computational burden, a multi-step approach is taken, and a two-step Anderson-Rubin (AR) statistic is considered. We then propose a three-step orthogonal decomposition of the AR statistic, where the null distribution of each component does not depend on the assumption of a full rank of the Jacobian. Power experiments are conducted, and inferences on returns to schooling using the Angrist and Krueger data are considered as an empirical example. Although returns to schooling for the upper quantiles seem to be quite consistent, the robust confidence sets for the lower quantiles are so wide that they still remain imprecise, which differs from the results in Lee (2004) and Chernozhukov and Hansen (2005b).

2006 Pacific Conference for Development Economics

I just wanted to make sure that everybody interested have heard about the 2006 Pacific Conference for Development Economics. It is a relatively new initiative (first conference was last year) and it is great venue for especially PhD students to present their work. The poster for the conference can be found here. Please contact either me or Michael Kevane (mkevane at scu.edu) for more information.

Back in Seattle

I am back! I arrived in Seattle yesterday and will be updating my blog a little more regularly now. The main thing happening right now is that we are looking to hire a junior micro-econometrician. We interviewed a number of good candidates at the ASSA meetings in Boston and we will be deciding on fly-outs soon. I will provide an update when more information is available.

I will also be teaching a course in the microeconomics of development. More on that later.

Development Economics Course at Brown

I have added a link to the undergraduate development economics course that I am currently teaching at Brown. You can find it under "Teaching" in the menu on the left. It is probably mostly of interest to other professors who are setting up a development economics course. I will be teaching a similar course during the Spring quarter at UW, although there will probably be quite a few changes, if for no other reason that I will not have a TA!

Literacy, Skills and Welfare: Effects of Participation in an an Adult Literacy Program

New paper! Niels-Hugo Blunch and I just finished a paper that examines the effectiveness of participation in adult literacy programs in Ghana. The abstract is below. You can download the paper here.

This paper examines the effects of adult literacy program participation on household consumption in Ghana. For households where none of the adults have completed any formal education we find a substantial, positive and statistically significant effect on household consumption. There is, however, little evidence that other households benefit from participation. Furthermore, there appears to be relatively little effect of participation on individual literacy and numeracy skills for all types of households. Hence, the positive effects of participation seem to arise not from literacy skills taught in the programs, but rather from another major component, which focuses on income generating activities, and/or from other factors such as improvements as a result of an expanded network.

NEUDC 2005

I participated in the NEUDC 2005, which, very conveniently for me, was held at Brown. I presented my work on the relation between risk and fertility in Guatemala and discussed Shareen Joshi and T. Paul Schultz's paper on the long-term impact of family planning programs in Matlab.

Visiting position at Brown

I will a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown for the Fall semester (mid August to mid December). While in Providence I will be based at the Population Studies and Training Center, which just moved in to a very nicely renovated building (the old Historical Society building on Waterman Street). Beside doing research and talking to people about my research ideas, I will also be teaching an undergraduate course in development economics for the Economics Department. Furthermore, I am scheduled to present a paper at the PSTC Colloquia Series and at the NEUDC which will be held at Brown this year. The best way to get in touch with me while I am gone is to use my UW email address, which I will continue to use (and I will probably forward my Brown email to that). You can also try giving me a ring at (401) 863-9411, although I do not have a voice mail yet.

Congratulations to Arif

Arif Mamun succesfully defended his PhD dissertation today, so a big congratulation to him. He is the first student I have been on a committee for. He will be going to work for Mathematica in September.

Conference presentations

During the last couple of weeks I have been to two conferences and given a talk. The first conference was the European Society for Population Economics' annual meeting in Paris. I presented my paper on sex selective abortion in India and received a lot of valuable comments. Just before that conference I went to Mannheim to present my work on risk and fertility in Guatemala at the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging at the University of Mannheim. Currently I am in San Francisco for the Western Economic Association's annual conference, where I presented the sex selection work. After this the next conference is not until the end of September when I will be presenting at the NEUDC at Brown.

Referee reports for Econ 543

I have uploaded the papers for the referee reports to the server. You can reach them through the class web site (such as it is). Note that access is restricted based on your UW username. If you have any problems please let me know.

Economic Demography Workshop and PAA

I presented my paper, "Risk and Household Structure: Another Look at the Determinants of Fertility", at the Economic Demography Workshop, held in connection with the Population Association of America's (PAA) annual meeting in Philadelphia, and at the session "Parents and Children" during the regular meeting. At the PAA meeting I was also the chair for the session "Assessing Public Health Interventions in Developing Countries", arranged by Anoshua Chaudhuri. I plan to have the paper on-line before too long.

Pacific Conference for Development Economics

The first Pacific Conference for Development Economics was help at the University of San Francisco Saturday 5 March. It was a great success with lots of interesting papers and presentations. I presented my work on "Risk and Fertility: Another Look at the Determinants of Fertility". I hope to have a working paper version ready soon. However, the main advantage to going was meeting with the other people in the field. Next year's conference will be held 4 March 2006 at Santa Clara University. If you are a graduate student working on development you are encouraged to send it your paper. Part of the stated purpose of the conference is to allow graduate students to present and meet with faculty and other graduate students.

Changing Population Policies in China?

This New York Times article, Fearing Future, China Starts to Give Girls Their Due, is worth reading (required registration). The basic idea is that China is beginning to realise that its sex ratio is unlikely to change by itself in the short run. Therefore, in some areas the local governments have decided in some cases to pay families that already have daughters. This should be in order to persuade more families to have girls. As far as I can tell at least one of the programs is essentially a pension program aimed at parents without children or with only daughters.