infonet-economy

This paper proposes a post-model selection inference procedure, called targeted undersmoothing, designed to construct uniformly valid confidence sets for a broad class of functionals of sparse high-dimensional statistical models. These include dense functionals, which may potentially depend on all elements of an unknown high-dimensional parameter. The proposed confidence sets are...

This study provides new insights on how investors form beliefs about future asset prices and how they use these beliefs for their trading decisions. Compared to the objective Bayesian benchmark, investors become overly optimistic when they face a paper loss. In addition, selling decisions are less sensitive to beliefs than purchase decisions. This difference is driven by selling...

The univariate collapsing method (UCM) for portfolio optimization is based on obtaining the predictive mean and a risk measure such as variance or expected shortfall of the univariate pseudo-return series generated from a given set of portfolio weights and multivariate set of assets under interest and, via simulation or optimization, repeating this process until the desired portfolio...

Most models of ambiguity aversion satisfy Anscombe-Aumann’s Monotonicity axiom. Monotonicity imposes separability of preferences across events that occur with unknown probability. We construct a test of Monotonicity by modifying the Allais paradox to a setting with both subjective and objective uncertainty. Two experimental studies are conducted: while study 1 uses U.S. online...

Forward regression is a statistical model selection and estimation procedure which inductively selects covariates that add predictive power into a working statistical regression model. Once a model is selected, unknown regression parameters are estimated by least squares. This paper analyzes forward regression in high-dimensional sparse linear models. Probabilistic bounds for...

We study the monotonicity of sender’s equilibrium strategy with respect to her type in signalling games. We use counterexamples to show that when the sender’s payoff is non-separable, the Spence-Mirrlees condition cannot rule out equilibria in which the sender uses non-monotone strategies. These equilibria can survive standard refinements as incentives are strict and the sender plays...

We present the results of an empirical study, in which we analyze the ability of the Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) operator to model actual preferences in a multi-attribute ranking task. We compare the OWA to a competing model (Simple Additive Weighting SAW), and we also study whether its characteristic feature, the ability to represent different attitudes toward compensation among...

Institutions are an important means for fostering prosocial behaviors, but in many contexts their scope is limited and they govern only a subset of all socially desirable acts. We study experimentally how the presence and nature of an institution that enforces prosocial behavior in one domain affects behavior in a similar but unregulated domain. Groups play two identical public good...

We provide novel evidence on the role of income taxes for housing rents and spatial sorting. Drawing on comprehensive micro-level data, we estimate the responsiveness of households to tax differentials across municipal boundaries. Correcting for unobservable location characteristics and isolating the residential sorting component, we identify an income tax elasticity of rents of...