Intratemporal Welfare and the Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources
Ronald H. Schmidt
Deposit Insurance in a Deregulated Financial Environment: The Case for Reform
Eugenie Dudding Short and Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr.
A Comparison of Forecasting Accuracies of Alternative Regional Production Index Methodologies
Thomas B. Fomby
Published as: Fomby, Thomas B. (1986), "A Comparison of Forecasting Accuracies of Alternative Regional Production Index Methodologies," Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 4 (2): 177-186.
Abstract: This article examines the forecasting accuracies of various methods used by Federal Reserve Banks to estimate real value added by regional manufacturing industries. Using Texas manufacturing data and weighted forecasting accuracy measures consistent with index number construction for Texas, obtained results support the use of very simple methods based on the assumption of product exhaustion, allowing for technical change. More complex methods using Cobb–Douglas production functions estimated by Bayesian techniques did not perform as well, not because of lack of conceptual sophistication or appropriate prior information but probably because of the small number of observations and collinearity of the data that are available when constructing regional production indices. These results must be qualified. The weighted forecasting accuracy measures tend to obscure the fact that no one method is uniformly superior to the other methods for all industries. Given industry weights different from those for Texas, the results presented here could be reversed. Confirmation of the conclusions drawn await the results of other regional manufacturing studies.
On Regional Integration in Bank Commercial Lending
Dale K. Osborne
Abstract: This paper tests the hypothesis that average interest rates for ten categories of commercial loans (short-term and long-term loans in five size classes) in the regions of the United States behave as if they were generated in an integrated national market. The tests, derived fron two model s of commercial lending 'in an integrated market, indicate that all regions are highly integrated in short-term lending in all size classes. In long-term lending, five of the six negions appear to be highly integrated in four of the five size classes. The exceptional region is the Southeast, which seems not only to be poorly integrated with the other regions but also to be far less homogeneous. The exceptional loan-size class is 0 to $10,000.
Monetary Regimes and the Term Structure of Interest Rates, 1862-1982
Scott Ulman and John H. Wood
Abstract: American yield curves have been characterized by positive slopes when interest rates have been low and by negative slopes when interest rates have been high, with, however, some apparent revisions in the late 1870s and early 1970s of what should be considered "high" and "low". Annual observations on short- and long-term yields between 1862 and 1982 are consistent with both traditional and modern expectations theories under regressive expectations, where "the normal rate" toward which short rates are expected to regress is a function of the monetary standard; specifically, paper or gold. But the model presented here does not allow
us to distinguish empirically between the impacts of alternative monetary regimes on the normal rate and term premia.
Recent Interest Rate Behavior in Perspective: Some Descriptive Statistics
James G. Hoehn