Carlos Lamarche

Estimation of Censored Quantile Regression for Panel Data With Fixed Effects

This article investigates estimation of censored quantile regression (QR) models with fixed effects. Standard available methods are not appropriate for estimation of a censored QR model with a large number of parameters or with covariates correlated with unobserved individual heterogeneity. Motivated by these limitations, the article proposes estimators that are obtained by applying fixed effects QR to subsets of observations selected either parametrically or nonparametrically. We derive the limiting distribution of the new estimators under joint limits, and conduct Monte Carlo simulations to assess their small sample performance. An empirical application of the method to study the impact of the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the black–white earnings gap is considered. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Industry-wide work rules and productivity: evidence from Argentine union contract data

AbstractAbstractIn the early 1990’s, the Argentine government promoted a framework for productivity-based negotiations between firms and unions at low levels of organization. The policy weakened the industry-wide collective bargaining system, which sets working conditions for all firms in an industry. This paper employs newly developed quantile regression approaches to investigate the effect of union practices on productivity within the context of the reform. The findings show that (i) industry-wide practices on displacement of workers and training have a negative impact on productivity; (ii) work practices do not appear to restrict economic efficiency in the post-reform period; (iii) union practices on technology acquisition have an adverse effect on high-productivity growth industries. Productivity seems to improve in an economy promoting policies to weaken industry-wide collective bargaining.JEL codesJ52; O14; O43; O54

Quantifying the impact of economic crises on infant mortality in advanced economies

Policy makers rely on a mix of government spending and tax cuts to address the imbalances in the economy during an economic crisis, by promoting price stability and renewed economic growth. However, little discussion appears to focus explicitly on quantifying the cost of economic crises in terms of human lives, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of society, infants. Using a statistical approach that is robust to the increases of mortality in outlying years, we quantify the effect that economic crises, periods of prolonged economic recession, have on infant mortality. Moreover, we investigate whether different levels of public spending on health across advanced industrialized democracies can mitigate the impact of crises on infant mortality. We find that economic crises are extremely costly and lead to a more than proportional increase in infant mortality in the short-run. Substantial public spending on health is required in order to limit their impact.

Quantile Regression Estimation of Panel Duration Models with Censored Data

This paper studies the estimation of quantile regression panel duration models. We allow for the possibility of endogenous covariates and correlated individual effects in the quantile regression models. We propose a quantile regression approach for panel duration models under conditionally independent censoring. The procedure involves minimizing l1 convex objective functions and is motivated by a martingale property associated with survival data in models with endogenous covariates. We carry out a series of Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the small sample performance of the proposed approach in comparison with other existing methods. An empirical application of the method to the analysis of the effect of unemployment insurance on unemployment duration illustrates the approach.

Price Adjustment Policies and Firm Size

A number of U.S. State Departments of Transportation have adopted a price adjustment policy designed to limit cost fluctuations of oil‐based inputs in government procurement. Similar policies are common in defense contracting, and have been used to offset financial losses of health insurance companies in Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. We show that while all bidders submit lower bids after the policy is introduced, the extent of bid reduction diminishes with firm size. Small new firms are able to compete more frequently, promoting auction competition and efficiency.

STRATEGIC BIDDING AND CONTRACT RENEGOTIATION

When firms bid in procurement auctions, they take into account the likelihood of future contract renegotiations. If they anticipate that certain input quantities will change ex post, they have an incentive to strategically skew their itemized bids, thereby increasing profits for themselves and costs for the procuring agency. We develop and estimate a structural model of strategic bidding using a data set of road construction projects in Vermont. We find that bidding strategies lead to increased markups for renegotiated items and reduced markups for nonrenegotiated items, results consistent with bid�?skewing.