Chris Rohlfs

Hedonic Estimation Under Very General Conditions Using Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs

This paper develops a generalized hedonic model in which an exogenous shock to a single product attribute can affect other attributes, the markets for the products complements and substitutes, and aggregate quantity produced. These factors are shown to be empirically relevant and to cause bias in traditional approaches. Experimental and quasi-experimental estimators of attribute demand are introduced that address these biases, are transparent, and are straightforward to implement. One of these estimators is applied to measure the marginal military recruits valuation of educational benefits, which is found to range across packages from -

Estimating Parents’ Valuations of Class Size Reductions Using Attrition in the Tennessee STAR Experiment

0.024 to +

A comment on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of armored tactical wheeled vehicles

0.467 per dollar of benefits.

Can the President Really Affect Economic Growth? Presidential Effort and the Political Business Cycle

Abstract This study estimates parents’ valuations of small classes by examining the effects of randomly assigned class type on the decision to remove one’s child from the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment, using a new hedonic estimation strategy that estimates the cash payment that would be required to generate the same difference in attrition rates as was observed between treatment and control groups. In 2010 dollars, our preferred estimates indicate that parents on the margin of sending their children to private schools valued small classes at

The Government's Valuation of Military Life-Saving in War: A Cost Minimization Approach

2,000–

Using Combat Losses of Medical Personnel to Estimate the Impact of Trauma Care in Battle: Evidence from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan

18,000 per year relative to a cost of

Optimal Bail and the Value of Freedom: Evidence from the Philadelphia Bail Experiment

3,000 per student year.

Does Combat Exposure Make You a More Violent or Criminal Person? Evidence from the Vietnam Draft

This comment discusses the pros and cons of the methodology and data used in our previous study on the cost-effectiveness of armor on Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (TWVs), and responds to recent critiques by Franz Gayl. In our previous article, we evaluated the large-scale Army policies to replace relatively light Type 1 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles (TWVs) with moderately protected Type 2 variants, and later to replace Type 2s with heavily protected Type 3s. We find that the switch from Type 2 to Type 3 TWVs did not appreciably reduce fatalities and were not cost-effective. Mr. Gayl contends that the data and choice of control variables used in our original study negatively bias our findings for Type 3 TWVs. We defend our previous conclusions and argue that Gayl’s suggested approach of focusing on deaths per insurgent attack fails to account for effects of the vehicles on when, where, and how attacks occurred. Our methodology does not suffer from this bias and measures effects on total unit casualties rather those incurred per attack. We explain that our estimates are stable across many specifications and are not sensitive to the choice of controls as Gayl suggests.

The Role of Specific Subjects in Education Production Functions: Evidence from Morning Classes in Chicago Public High Schools

Presidential elections are often seen as referendums on the health of the economy; however, little evidence exists on the presidents ability to influence gross domestic product (GDP). This study examines the effect of the incentive to be reelected and the resulting increase in presidential effort on GDP growth. Growth is found to rise in reelection years for first‐term presidents after 1932 and to fall in election years before 1932, when reelection was uncommon, and for second‐term presidents generally. This effect is largest for high‐quality presidents — who probably have the highest return to effort — and is spread across multiple sectors of the economy.

Causal Effects of Sex Preference on Sex-Blind and Sex-Selective Child Avoidance and Substitution Across Birth Years: Evidence from the Japanese Year of the Fire Horse

A wide range of costly government policies are designed to extend citizens’ lives and to reduce the risk of premature death. Using economic reasoning, one can evaluate such policies on the basis of efficiency.