This paper documents exploratory drilling activity on offshore wildcat oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico sold between 1954 and 1980. We calculate the empirical drilling hazard function for cohorts in specific areas. For each year of the lease, we study the determinants of the decision whether to begin exploratory drilling and their relationship to the outcome of any drilling activity. Our results indicate that equilibrium predictions of plausible noncooperative models are reasonably accurate and more descriptive than those of cooperative models of drilling timing. We discuss why noncooperative behavior may occur and the potential gains from coordination.

This paper documents exploratory drilling activity on offshore wildcat oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico sold between 1954 and 1980. The authors calculate the empirical drilling hazard function for cohorts in specific areas. For each year of the lease, they study the determinants of the decision whether to begin exploratory drilling and their relationship to the outcome of any drilling activity. Their results indicate that equilibrium predictions of plausible noncooperative models are reasonably accurate and more descriptive than those of cooperative models of drilling timing. The authors discuss why noncooperative behavior may occur and the potential gains from coordination. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.

Using a panel data set for the forty-eight contiguous states from 1970 to 1983, several estimates are provided of a Cobb-Douglas production function with three types of public capital as inputs. Various specification tests are systematically applied to test for both random and fixed state effects, nonstationarity, endogeneity of the private inputs, and measurement error. In the preferred specification, which is first differences with fixed state effects, the public capital variables are not significant, while the fixed state effects and private input variables are significant. Copyright 1996 by MIT Press.