Research Database

We propose and evaluate an explicit test of the null hypothesis of no difference in the accuracy of two competing forecasts. In contrast to previously developed tests, a wide variety of accuracy measures can be used (in particular, the loss function need not be quadratic, and need not even be symmetric), and forecast errors can be non-Gaussian, nonzero mean, serially correlated and contemporaneously correlated.

Estimates of interindustry wage differentials are obtained using a fixed-effects estimator on a long panel, the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men (NLS). After controlling for observable worker characteristics, 84 percent of the residual variance of log wages across industries is explained by individual fixed-effects. Only 16 percent of the residual variance is “explained” by industry dummies. Since no controls for specific job characteristics are used, job characteristics that vary across industries could potentially explain this rather small residual across-industry log wage variance that is not attributable to individual effects. Clearly then, these data do not force us to resort to noncompetitive explanations of interindustry wage differentials, such as efficiency wage theory. Furthermore, efficiency wage theories predict that wages in efficiency wage paying (or primary) industries should be relatively rigid. Therefore, industry wage differentials should widen in recessions. However, no such tendency is found in the data.

Results in Lucas (1987) suggest that if public policy can affect the growth rate of the economy, the welfare implications of alternative policies will be large. In this paper, a stochastic, dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous growth and money is examined. In this setting, inflation lowers growth through its effect on the return to work. However, the welfare costs of higher inflation are modest.

This paper examines whether the U.S. banking industry's recent consolidation trend—toward fewer and bigger firms—is a natural result of market forces. The paper finds that it is not: The evidence does not support the popular claims that large banking firms are more efficient and less risky than smaller firms or the notion that the industry is consolidating in order to eliminate excess capacity. The paper suggests, instead, that public policies are encouraging banks to merge, although it acknowledges that other forces may be at work as well.

We consider four models of consumption that differ with respect to efficient risk-sharing and altruism. They range from complete markets with altruism to family risk-sharing. We use a matched sample of parents and independent children available from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to discriminate between the four models. Our testing procedure is designed to deal with the set of observed independent children being endogenously selected. The combined hypothesis of complete markets and altruism can be decisively rejected, while we fail to reject altruism and hence family risk-sharing for a subset of families.

This paper critically reevaluates recent claims that the postwar U.S. price level exhibits countercyclicality. While overall countercyclicality is confirmed, temporal disaggregation suggests a shift from pro- to countercyclicality in the early 1970s. Furthermore, the countercyclicality is markedly more pronounced for negative than for positive output innovations. The evidence thus casts doubt on single-source business cycle explanations.