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Recent QED Working Papers

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#1505.

Charles Beach

Sample Sizes for Reliably Estimating Lower and Upper Income Shares in Income Distribution Analysis

This paper uses distribution-free formulas for the asymptotic variances of sample quantile income shares – as typically published by statistical agencies as measures of the distribution of income inequality – to calculate how large a survey sample must be in order to estimate a more refined quantile breakdown for a given level of confidence. The approach is applied to decile and quintile earnings data to calculate required increases in sample size to obtain tail 5 percent quantal share estimates and to test changes in income shares. Simple rules of thumb are offered for such a required…

#1504.

Ludovic Mbakop, Glenn Jenkins, Leonard Leung, Kamil Sertoglu

Traceability, value, and trust in the coffee market: A natural experiment in Ethiopia

This study measures the impact of traceability attributes on international buyers’ willingness to pay for coffee produced in Ethiopia and the impact of accurate information on the production location of the coffee on the pricing according to its type and grade. Two sets of regressions models were used to investigate the important determinant factors affecting the export prices of trader and producer coffee, one each for trader and producer coffee, to measure the impact of the ECX on the prices and to evaluate the effect of the coffee types and grades on the prices. The results show that…

#1503.

Foroogh Nazzari Chamaki, Glenn Jenkins, Majid Hashemipour

Financial, Economic and Environmental Analyses of Upgrading Reverse Osmosis Plant Fed with Treated Wastewater

One of the most effective strategies to mitigate water shortages worldwide is to reuse the treated wastewater for freshwater production employing reverse osmosis (RO) technology. This strategy is appropriate in urban areas of arid or semi-arid regions as it can provide a sustainable and reliable water source close to the consumers. One of the drawbacks of RO is the high variability of production costs due to the electricity intensity. In addition, depending on the electricity source, it can also result in substantial environmental costs.

This study showed that upgrading pumping and…

#1502.

Osaid Shamleh, Glenn Jenkins, Tufan Ekici

Excise Tax Incidence: The Inequity of Taxing Obesity and Beauty

The estimation and analysis of the distribution of the negative health impacts of certain commodities subject to excise taxes in Belize and the distribution of the burdens of the excise taxes across households of different income levels are the focus of this article. Particular attention is given to the taxation of soft drinks and cosmetics. We examine the income distribution and tax revenue impacts using the commodity data from the household expenditure survey by and the effective tax rates expressed as a percentage of the value of the final consumption of each item. As in many developing…

#1501.

Glenn Jenkins, Mehmet Nazif

Estimation of economic welfare gains from trade facilitation in the Andean Community

Border procedures around the globe can act as barriers hindering international trade. Another impact of these procedures relates to their economic resource costs. In this study, using a microeconomic framework of international trade, the potential economic gains are estimated for reductions in trade administration costs related to sea border trade in the Andean Community (CAN) as well as for the increase in import and export trades that are stimulated as a consequence of the reduction in trade administration costs. The potential cost reductions are estimated separately for import and…

#1500.

Glenn Jenkins, Godwin Olasehinde-Williams

A Test of Hirschman’s Hiding Hand Principle in World Bank-Financed Hydropower Projects

This study is an attempt to determine whether the need to get hydropower project appraisals perfectly right during the pre-construction phase so as to prevent significant overruns along with benefit shortfalls should supersede the need to deliver projects at the earliest possible time so as to meet the needs of the people. To achieve the study objective, we test whether the Hiding Hand principle is predominantly benevolent or malevolent. We argue that if the Hiding Hand is benevolent, then project stakeholders are better off focusing on quick delivery of power projects, but if it is…

#1499.

Thorsten V. Koeppl, Jeremy Kronick, James McNeil

Using Functional Shocks to Assess Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policy in Canada

We develop a new series of Canadian monetary policy shocks and analyze their impact on inflation and real GDP from 1996–2020. Our shocks are constructed as the daily change in the Nelson-Siegel yield curve factors after a monetary policy announcement. Because these shocks include information along the entire yield curve, they provide a more comprehensive view of Canadian monetary policy relative to the existing literature, which focuses on shocks to the short-run interest rate. We document that monetary policy shocks often twist the yield curve, which tends to make monetary policy less…

#1498.

Nicholas Brown

Moment-Based Estimation of Linear Panel Data Models with Factor-Augmented Errors

I consider linear panel data models with unobserved factor structures when the number of time periods is small relative to the number of cross-sectional units. I examine two popular methods of estimation: the first eliminates the factors with a parameterized quasi-long-differencing (QLD) transformation. The other, referred to as common correlated effects (CCE), uses the cross-sectional averages of the independent and response variables to project out the space spanned by the factors. I show that the classical CCE assumptions imply unused moment conditions that can be exploited by the QLD…

#1497.

Nicholas Brown, Jeffrey Wooldridge

More Efficient Estimation of Multiplicative Panel Data Models in the Presence of Serial Correlation

We provide a systemic approach in obtaining an estimator asymptotically more efficient than the popular fixed effects Poisson (FEP) estimator for panel data models with multiplicative heterogeneity in the conditional mean. In particular, we derive the optimal…

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