Usha Nair-Reichert

Technical efficiency estimates using standard stochastic frontier models do not include spillover effects, although the existence of such spillovers is well documented in the productivity literature. This paper proposes a regression-based, distribution-free estimation method applicable to both time-varying efficiency spatial stochastic frontier and fixed effects spatial autoregressive models, which is relatively easy to estimate. The empirical results from the Indian chemical industry illustrate that ignoring spatial dependence may seriously distort estimates for efficiency rankings. The average overall spillover effect on a firm’s efficiency is 7.20 percentage points, or an average positive spillover effect of US$4.9 million in sales revenue.

We measure the contribution of imported equipment to labour productivity growth in 12 Latin American countries between 1970 and 2016, accounting for investment-specific technological change embodied in equipment. We link investment-specific technological change with falling relative equipment prices and construct its empirical counterpart by combining observations from each country’s transport, machinery, computers and communication equipment with household consumption data. By excluding structures from our relative equipment price series, we produce more precise growth decompositions, separating investment-specific technological change in equipment from the traditional, Hicks-neutral form of technological progress. Our results show significant variation in the contribution of imported equipment to growth across Latin America. Within country, matched-pair tests indicate that all factors, including imported equipment, make positive and significant contributions to growth. However, cross-country heterogeneity makes identifying significant contributors difficult in a pooled sample.

Purpose This study investigates the impact of federal income tax rates and budget deficits on the nominal interest rate yield on high-grade municipal tax-free bonds (municipals) in the US. The 58-year study period covers the years 1959 through 2016 and thus is very recent. Design/methodology/approach The study develops a loanable funds model that allows for various financial market factors. Once developed, the model is estimated by autoregressive two-stage least squares, with a Newey-West heteroskedasticity correction. Findings The nominal interest rate yield on municipals is a decreasing function of the maximum marginal federal personal income tax rate and an increasing function of the federal budget deficit (expressed as a per cent of GDP). This yield is also an increasing function of nominal interest rate yields on three- and ten-year treasury notes and expected inflation. Research limitations/implications When introducing additional interest rates such as treasury bills as explanatory variables, multi-collinearity becomes a serious problem. Practical implications This study indicates that lower maximum federal personal income tax rates and larger federal budget deficits, both act to raise borrowing costs for cities (of all sizes), counties and states across the country. Given the study period of 58 years, these relationships appear to be enduring ones that responsible policy-makers should not overlook. Social implications Tax reform and debt management need to be conducted in a very circumspect fashion. Originality/value No recent study investigating the impact of the two key policy variables in this study has been published.

Many states have experienced a large influx of undocumented migrants in recent years. This phenomenon has created new demands on higher educational systems at the state level. Some states have passed legislation to restrict the access of undocumented migrants to higher public education whereas others provide access in various forms including in-state tuition. Our research examines a related issue that has not been researched much, namely, the impact of educational access on the location decisions of undocumented migrants in the U.S. Undocumented migrants appear to locate in states with high average median real per capita incomes. There is also evidence of clustering of undocumented migrants in states with large migrant networks. The effect of educational access on the percentage of undocumented workers in a state is mixed and small in most specifications, a finding perhaps indicative of a trade-off between competing priorities in the choice of location.

The issue of liberalization of international trade in services has received considerable attention in recent years. One of the benefits discussed in the literature is the role of services in facilitating goods trade among countries. We test this claim by analyzing the impact of trade in services on manufactured goods exports to the U.S. using data for 30 trading partners for the period 1992-2000. We use Instrumental Variable estimation to control for potential endogeniety. Our analysis also addresses the debates regarding whether services trade and goods trade are substitutes or complements. The answer depends upon whether imported services are used more intensively in the traded goods sector or in the non-traded goods sector. The key empirical results indicate that, on average, aggregate service imports from the U.S. have a significant and positive impact on goods exports to the U.S. in the case of low income nations but not in the case of high income countries. In most cases, the impact is significant and positive for business services, while it is negative and statistically significant in the case of financial services. The latter outcome could be due to a Rybczynski type effect if financial services are used mostly in sectors that do not export to the U.S.

This study addresses a question that has not been researched much previously, namely, does the unavailability of health insurance act as an incentive for persons to enlist in the military in the U.S.? This relationship is proffered as the “Military Health Care Magnet Hypothesis.”  The present study endeavors to provide insight into this issue within a cost-benefit framework. The empirical analysis uses annual data for the years 1974 through 2007, the only years to date for which all of the variables in the model are dependable after the end of military conscription in the U.S. in 1973. Both OLS and 2SLS results demonstrate, among other things, that the greater the percentage of the civilian population without health insurance, the greater the rate of enlistment in the U.S. Army.

Technical efficiency estimates using standard stochastic frontier models do not include spillover effects, although the existence of such spillovers is well documented in the productivity literature. This paper proposes a regression-based, distribution-free estimation method applicable to both time-varying efficiency spatial stochastic frontier and fixed effects spatial autoregressive models, which is relatively easy to estimate. The empirical results from the Indian chemical industry illustrate that ignoring spatial dependence may seriously distort estimates for efficiency rankings. The average overall spillover effect on a firm’s efficiency is 7.20 percentage points, or an average positive spillover effect of US$4.9 million in sales revenue.

We measure the contribution of imported equipment to labour productivity growth in 12 Latin American countries between 1970 and 2016, accounting for investment-specific technological change embodied in equipment. We link investment-specific technological change with falling relative equipment prices and construct its empirical counterpart by combining observations from each country’s transport, machinery, computers and communication equipment with household consumption data. By excluding structures from our relative equipment price series, we produce more precise growth decompositions, separating investment-specific technological change in equipment from the traditional, Hicks-neutral form of technological progress. Our results show significant variation in the contribution of imported equipment to growth across Latin America. Within country, matched-pair tests indicate that all factors, including imported equipment, make positive and significant contributions to growth. However, cross-country heterogeneity makes identifying significant contributors difficult in a pooled sample.

Purpose This study investigates the impact of federal income tax rates and budget deficits on the nominal interest rate yield on high-grade municipal tax-free bonds (municipals) in the US. The 58-year study period covers the years 1959 through 2016 and thus is very recent. Design/methodology/approach The study develops a loanable funds model that allows for various financial market factors. Once developed, the model is estimated by autoregressive two-stage least squares, with a Newey-West heteroskedasticity correction. Findings The nominal interest rate yield on municipals is a decreasing function of the maximum marginal federal personal income tax rate and an increasing function of the federal budget deficit (expressed as a per cent of GDP). This yield is also an increasing function of nominal interest rate yields on three- and ten-year treasury notes and expected inflation. Research limitations/implications When introducing additional interest rates such as treasury bills as explanatory variables, multi-collinearity becomes a serious problem. Practical implications This study indicates that lower maximum federal personal income tax rates and larger federal budget deficits, both act to raise borrowing costs for cities (of all sizes), counties and states across the country. Given the study period of 58 years, these relationships appear to be enduring ones that responsible policy-makers should not overlook. Social implications Tax reform and debt management need to be conducted in a very circumspect fashion. Originality/value No recent study investigating the impact of the two key policy variables in this study has been published.

Many states have experienced a large influx of undocumented migrants in recent years. This phenomenon has created new demands on higher educational systems at the state level. Some states have passed legislation to restrict the access of undocumented migrants to higher public education whereas others provide access in various forms including in-state tuition. Our research examines a related issue that has not been researched much, namely, the impact of educational access on the location decisions of undocumented migrants in the U.S. Undocumented migrants appear to locate in states with high average median real per capita incomes. There is also evidence of clustering of undocumented migrants in states with large migrant networks. The effect of educational access on the percentage of undocumented workers in a state is mixed and small in most specifications, a finding perhaps indicative of a trade-off between competing priorities in the choice of location.

Many states have experienced a large influx of undocumented migrants in recent years. It has resulted in contentious debates regarding the burdens and benefits of their presence in the U.S. and in individual states and the need for comprehensive immigration reform. This research examines factors that influence the location decisions of undocumented migrants in the U.S. Greater economic opportunities, the existence of migrant networks, and the share of agriculture, accommodation, and food services sectors in the Gross State Product have a positive and significant impact on percentage of undocumented migrants at the state level. Undocumented migrants also appear to locate in states with policies that foster greater individual freedoms. The evidence of clustering of undocumented migrants in states with large migrant networks could pose challenges for states trying to regulate the size of their undocumented migrant population.

This study adopts state-level data to investigate empirically the Tiebout hypothesis (as extended by Tullock) of ‘voting with one’s feet’ for the period referred to in the United States as the ‘Great Recession’ (2007–09). As compared with previous studies, more recent data are used and estimates are provided for three time periods: the ‘Great Recession’ (from 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2009), the pre-Great Recession period (1 July 2004 to 30 June 2006) and the post-Great Recession period (1 July 2009 to 30 June 2011). This analysis also differs from most previous literature by including a separate cost-of-living variable and a variable measuring effective state personal income tax rates. After allowing for various economic factors and quality of life/climate variables, migrants (consumer-voters) over the 2007–09 period appear to prefer states with lower effective state personal income tax rates and higher levels of ‘fiscal surplus’, defined in this study for each state as the total outlay per pupil on primary and secondary public education minus the per capita property tax level. The three empirical estimates all demonstrate that the Tiebout/Tullock hypothesis was operational not only during but also both before and after the Great Recession since for all three time periods migrants (consumer-voters) manifested a preference for lower effective state personal income tax rates and higher levels of fiscal surplus.

This study of internal migration at the state level empirically investigates the Tiebout hypothesis (as extended by Tullock) of “voting with one’s feet.” In addition to its adoption of more current data (net migration from July, 2000 through July, 2008) than other related studies to date, the model differs from most previous comparable studies by including a separate cost of living variable and a measure of per capita state income tax burdens. We also test the hypothesis using two alternative specifications: one linear and the other semi-log. Finally, the analysis also provides both OLS and 2SLS estimates. The advantage of this multi-faceted approach is that it permits an assessment of how sensitive the results are to specification changes and to different estimation procedures. After controlling for economic factors and a quality of life/climate variable, migrants (consumer-voters) appear to prefer lower state income tax burdens, lower state plus local property tax burdens, and higher per pupil outlays on primary and secondary public education.

The issue of liberalization of international trade in services has received considerable attention in recent years. One of the benefits discussed in the literature is the role of services in facilitating goods trade among countries. We test this claim by analyzing the impact of trade in services on manufactured goods exports to the U.S. using data for 30 trading partners for the period 1992-2000. We use Instrumental Variable estimation to control for potential endogeniety. Our analysis also addresses the debates regarding whether services trade and goods trade are substitutes or complements. The answer depends upon whether imported services are used more intensively in the traded goods sector or in the non-traded goods sector. The key empirical results indicate that, on average, aggregate service imports from the U.S. have a significant and positive impact on goods exports to the U.S. in the case of low income nations but not in the case of high income countries. In most cases, the impact is significant and positive for business services, while it is negative and statistically significant in the case of financial services. The latter outcome could be due to a Rybczynski type effect if financial services are used mostly in sectors that do not export to the U.S.

This study addresses a question that has not been researched much previously, namely, does the unavailability of health insurance act as an incentive for persons to enlist in the military in the U.S.? This relationship is proffered as the “Military Health Care Magnet Hypothesis.”  The present study endeavors to provide insight into this issue within a cost-benefit framework. The empirical analysis uses annual data for the years 1974 through 2007, the only years to date for which all of the variables in the model are dependable after the end of military conscription in the U.S. in 1973. Both OLS and 2SLS results demonstrate, among other things, that the greater the percentage of the civilian population without health insurance, the greater the rate of enlistment in the U.S. Army.

To date, an overwhelming majority of the literature has addressed mean relationships between producer and consumer price inflation. Granger et al . (1986) represent the only attempt to investigate second moment relationships. We examine the consumer--producer price relationship employing a multivariate GARCH-M framework that allows simultaneous estimation of the bivariate system along with providing explicit times series estimates of the variances of consumer and producer price inflation. This research also breaks new ground in the use of core and over-all inflation variance measures as well as examining state dependent mean and variance relationships. We find that mean relationships are generally sensitive to the measure of inflation used. Food and energy prices play an important role in transmitting changes in aggregate input prices to aggregate output prices. When food and energy prices are eliminated from consumer and producer price inflation measures, mean relationships break down irrespective of whether the economy is experiencing a high or low inflation regime. Variance relationships appear to be more robust in general and input price relationships in particular appear to respond to inflation regime shifts.

This study extends the literature on relative price dispersion by addressing two questions that have remained largely unanswered: (a) What is the impact on relative price dispersion of the variance of the uncertain relationship between money and prices? (b) Is there evidence across industries of a differential impact on price dispersion of the variance of the uncertain relationship between money and prices? These issues are examined in a bivariate GARCH-M model using monthly data from 1963–1997. The results at the aggregate level indicate that the variance of the uncertain relationship between money and prices has a positive and significant impact on relative price dispersion during the period 1963 to 1997. Disaggregated analysis at the industry level suggests that the magnitude of the impact of the variance of the uncertain money-price relationship differs greatly across industries and generally tends to have a greater impact on the price dispersion of durable goods than on the price dispersion of nondurable goods. This study also has important implications regarding the effectiveness of rules-based monetary policy in eliminating uncertainty associated with discretionary monetary policy.