Richard K. Anderson, Akira Takayama; Tariffs, The Terms of Trade and Domestic Prices in a Monetary Economy: A Further Analysis, The Review of Economic Stud

Richard K. Anderson, Akira Takayama; Devaluation, the Specie Flow Mechanism and the Steady State, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 44, Issue 2, 1 Jun

Replicability is essential to assure the scientific integrity of empirical economic research. Some authors have suggested metadata analysis as a complementary tool. This suggestion must be addressed with caution. Empirical studies in most of economics are nonstochastic in the sense that they seldom are created via experiments and, with the data and computer software in-hand, should be reproducible without error.

This paper examines the distribution fu nctions of elasticity estimators in translog demand models. The authors consider the normaland ratio-of-normals distributions and present confidence intervals for the elasticity estimators. The results suggest that only elasticity estimato rs based on the means of the actual cost shares are likely to follow either the normal or ratio-of-normals distribution function. Examination of three published empirical studies demonstrates that inferences regarding the values of elasticities cannot be made from point estimates alone and suggests a trade- off between the level of aggregation and the width of confidence intervals for the elasticit y estimators.

We construct Monetary Services (Divisia) Indexes at various levels of aggregation (the broadest of which is M4) from the late 1940s through 1967 employing methods designed to permit these historical series to be spliced to corresponding series currently published by the Center for Financial Stability (CFS), which begin in 1967. The annualized growth rate of our MSI M2 during 1947 to 1967 generally lies between the growth rates of conventional M1 and M2, while the growth rate of MSI M3 is below that of conventional M3 over the same period. Using spliced series, we find that the velocities of the MSI exhibit gradual upward trends from the late 1940s through 1978, with distinct upward shifts in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, while the velocity of conventional M3 trends downward between 1953 and 1982. Using a Fourier demand model, we find elastic substitution between M1 and the non-M1 components of MSI M3 up to 1967, but inelastic substitution between bank and thrift deposits.

This paper examines the role of replication in empirical economic research. It presents the findings of a two-year study that collected programs and data from authors and attempted to replicate their published results. The research provides new and important information about the extent and causes of failures to replicate published results in economics. The findings suggest that inadvertent errors in published empirical articles are a commonplace, rather than a rare, occurence.