"July 1984, revised November 1985."

[In this paper several results are established which provide for the consistent estimation of macroeconomic effects using cross-section data, for general assumptions on the movement of the population distribution over time. We show that macroeconomic effects are always consistently estimated by linear instrumental variables coefficients, where the instruments are determined by the form of distribution movement. This leads to a natural way to assess the biases in OLS coefficients as estimators of macroeconomic effects, provides a nonparametric macroeconomic interpretation of linear instrumental variables coefficients when the true microeconomic behavioral model is unknown, and gives a nonparametric interpretation of standard regression decomposition statistics such as R extasciicircum2 relative to the information costs of nonlinearities in aggregation. All of the results are valid without imposing any testable restrictions on the cross-section data.]

[This paper amends the Aumann and Kurz single commodity "Power and Taxes" model in several ways: A linear production technology is assumed, incentive effects are introduced, and tax schedules are restricted to be linear. A theorem is stated which characterizes the linear tax schedules which are the NTU solutions of the model. The solutions of an example are computed, providing a perspective on a result of the Aumann and Kurz model that equilibrium marginal tax rates are not less than 50 per cent. For this example, equilibrium marginal tax rates are less than 50 per cent; incentive effects appear to be responsible for the low tax rates.]

[This paper investigates whether agents can learn how to form rational expectations using standard econometric techniques in the case of a linear stochastic supply and demand model with a production lag. This model has a unique rational expectations equilibrium in which the expected price is a linear function of an observable exogenous random variable. Outside of rational expectations equilibrium agents predict the price by using a regression of past prices on the exogenous random variable where the regression is estimated by either ordinary least squares or Bayesian methods. If the agents are Bayesians, they may have diverse prior beliefs on the mean of the estimated parameter, but all have the same precision. This estimation procedure would be appropriate for an outside observer estimating the parameters of the model in rational expectations equilibrium the coefficient of the equation relating the mathematical conditional expectation of the price to the exogenous variable is constant through time. Outside rational expectations equilibrium this coefficient, which changes each time new data change the regression coefficient. The data are generated by a time-varying parameter model where the varying parameter is determined by past data and the estimation procedure. Agents fail to take this feedback into account and so are estimating a misspecific model.]

[This paper estimates the incidence of response errors in the Current Population Survey. It proposes a procedure for adjusting the Bureau of Labor Statistics' gross flows data on labor market transitions to account for these errors. Although the findings are not definitive because the procedure makes particular assumptions regarding the stochastic process generating response errors, they illustrate the potentially substantial effect of response errors on studies of labor market behavior. The adjustment procedure suggests that because measurement errors give rise to spurious transitions between labor market states, the labor market may be less dynamic than previously thought. The results imply that conventional measures may understate the duration of unemployment by as much as eighty per cent, and overstate the frequency of labor force entry and exit by even more.]

[This paper considers the problem of specifying and estimating demand systems for samples which contain a significant proportion of observation with zero consumption of one or more goods. Our approach uses virtual prices, which are dual to the Kuhn-Tucker conditions, to select the set of goods consumed--the demand regime--and to transform binding nonnegativity constraints into nonbinding constraints. It has the advantage of permitting the use of indirect cost and utility functions such as the translog, and the analytic decomposition of demand effects for goods at the nonnegativity limit.]

For many years, social scientists have been interested in obtaining testable definitions of causality (Granger 1969, Sims 1972). Recent works include those of Chamberlain (1982) and Florens and Mouchart (1982). The present paper first clarifies the results of these latter papers by considering a unifying definition of noncausality. Then, log-likelihood ratio (LR) tests for noncausality are derived for qualitative panel data under the minimal assumption that one series is Markov. LR tests for the Markov property are also obtained. Both test statistics have closed forms. These tests thus provide a readily applicable procedure for testing noncausality on qualitative panel data. Finally, the tests are applied to French Business Survey data in order to test the hypothesis that price changes from period to period are strictly exogenous to disequilibria appearing within periods.