This paper presents a modified frontier approach to estimate hedonic regressions for data on rent-controlled and uncontrolled apartments. This new approach allows the author to estimate the size of the subsidy from landlords to tenants of rent-controlled apartments. In addition, this method provides the first estimates of the amount by which controls increase rents for uncontrolled apartments. The study shows that, in New York City in 1968, rents in the controlled sector would rise 22 to 26 percent upon decontrol, while rents in the uncontrolled sector would fall about 22 to 25 percent upon removal of rent controls. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.

Males who participated in intercollegiate athletics are estimated to receive 4 percent higher annual incomes than similar nonathletes. No such income premium associated with college athletics is revealed among females. Both male and female athletes who attended colleges and universities in the early 1970s had higher graduation rates than other students. Since the models used to estimate income and graduation differentials included many measurable determinants of labor market and academic outcomes, these findings suggest that athletic participation may enhance the development of discipline, confidence, motivation, a competitive spirit, or other subjective traits that encourage success. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.

This article applies finite mixture distributions to the estimation of cost functions for financial firms through time. The mixture approach allows the estimation of multiple technologies when firms' technology choices are unobservable. Technology switching (‘diffusion’) and underlying technical change are simultaneously evaluated. An application to large samples of U.S. banks for the years 1982–1986 illustrates the approach. Results suggest banks switch to lower cost production technologies when unburdened by strict branching regulations.

This paper presents a technique of cost-function estimation, based on the theory of finite mixture distributions, which allows for the simultaneous existence of multiple technologies of production when the researcher does not know which observations correspond to which technologies. The finite mixture technique provides estimates of the proportions of firms using the various technologies, facilitates comparisons between technologies, and preserves the traditional interpretations of cost estimation. After describing the mixture procedure, the technique is illustrated on a large sample of savings and loan associations, and it is concluded that this industry exhibits multiple technologies of production. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.