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This study investigates the association between the intergenerational geographic proximity of adult children and the well-being of older persons in China. Data from the 2014 wave of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey was analyzed using probit analysis. Results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between the geographic proximity of adult children and the well-being of older people in urban but not rural areas. Older adults who live independently but with adult children living close by have significantly higher life satisfaction than those who live with or at a distance from their children. The findings suggest that more comprehensive top-level policy designs with respect to the allocation and management of affordable housing should be employed to encourage nearby-living and hence improve the system for supporting older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple approximation for the bivariate normal cumulative distribution function based on the error function is derived. We compare the accuracy of our approximation with those of several existing approximation methods and the command in MATLAB. Our approximation performs quite well in the central portion and extreme tails of the distribution. We also apply the proposed method to evaluate the likelihood function of the binary endogenous regressor probit (BERP) model. The simulations indicate that the numerical stability and the accuracy of the proposed approach is promising when conducting the maximum likelihood estimation of the BERP model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research modifies the well-known three-stage merger simulation procedure of Nevo by replacing demand analysis in the first stage with survey-generated diversion ratios and own-price elasticities. We also provide a post-merger price formula under the scenario of two firms competing in the same relevant market and operating independently of the other firms in the relevant market. The same scenario is considered in upward pricing pressure (UPP) and is commonly observed in most filing cases for mergers. Since the formula is exact and requires only data on each firm's price and own-price elasticity and the diversion ratios between these two firms, our approach's implementation cost is almost identical to that used in the critical loss analysis, the diversion ratio, and UPP. The formula thus is informative and convenient for competition enforcement when dealing with merger cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heckman's (1976, 1979) sample selection model has been employed in many studies of linear and nonlinear regression applications. It is well known that ignoring the sample selectivity may result in inconsistency of the estimator due to the correlation between the statistical errors in the selection and main equations. In this article, we reconsider the maximum likelihood estimator for the panel sample selection model in Keane et al. (1988). Since the panel data model contains individual effects, such as fixed or random effects, the likelihood function is more complicated than that of the classical Heckman model. As an alternative to the existing derivation of the likelihood function in the literature, we show that the conditional distribution of the main equation follows a closed skew-normal (CSN) distribution, of which the linear transformation is still a CSN. Although the evaluation of the likelihood function involves high-dimensional integration, we show that the integration can be further simplified into a one-dimensional problem and can be evaluated by the simulated likelihood method. Moreover, we also conduct a Monte Carlo experiment to investigate the finite sample performance of the proposed estimator and find that our estimator provides reliable and quite satisfactory results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper considers the maximum likelihood estimation of a class of structural vector autoregressive fractionally integrated moving-average (VARFIMA) models. The structural VARFIMA model includes the fractional cointegration model as one of its special cases. We show that the conditional likelihood Durbin–Levinson (CLDL) algorithm of Tsay (2010a) is a fast and reliable approach to estimate the long-run effects as well as the short- and long-term dynamics of a structural VARFIMA process simultaneously. In particular, the computational cost of the CLDL algorithm is much lower than that proposed in Sowell (1989) and Dueker and Startz (1998). We apply the CLDL method to the Congressional approval data of Durr et al. (1997) and find that the long-run effect of economic expectations on Congressional approval is at least 0.5718, which is over twice the estimate of 0.24 found in Table 2 of Box-Steffensmeier and Tomlinson (2000). This paper also tests the divided party government hypothesis with the CLDL algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper considers the instrumental variables (IV) estimation of the autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model consisting of fractionally integrated regressors and errors, while allowing for part of the regressors to be endogenous. The idea of Liviatan (1963) and that of Tsay (2007) are combined to construct consistent and asymptotically normally distributed multiple-differenced two-stage-least-squares (MD-TSLS) and MD generalized method of moments (MD-GMM) estimators for the long memory ADL model. The simulations show that the performance of the MD-GMM estimator is especially excellent even though the sample size is 100. The IV estimators are applied to the data of Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht (1997) on Congressional approval. As compared to the 0.08 estimate of the long-run effect of presidential approval on Congressional approval based on the scalar ADL model of De Boef and Keele (2008), a stronger support for the divided party government hypothesis is found for a class of the vector ADL model which generates a corresponding long-run impact equal to 0.26 or higher. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In contrast to the results in Mayer and Riphahn (2000) where no distinction is made between the causes of economic as well as political immigrants, this article shows that compared to native Taiwanese, the parental refugee experience results in a lower completed fertility of the children's family partly through inducing a higher female labor force participation (FLFP) of the second-generation immigrant family. In addition, the likelihood of a wife participating in the market sector increases with the number of political immigrant parents and in-laws, supporting the psychological conjecture generated from Borjas (1982) and Brenner and Kiefer (1981) in which completed fertility falls with the refugee experience shared with a couple's parents and in-laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper considers the estimation and inference problems of a general class of time-series-cross-section (TSCS) models consisting of stationary or nonstationary long memory regressors and errors, while allowing for cross-correlations and serial correlations in cross-section and time dimensions, respectively. Although the applicability of this class of TSCS models is far-reaching, we show that each regression coefficient of these models can be easily tested with the critical values from the standard normal distribution based on the approach proposed in this paper. Furthermore, our approach is built on Robinson''s [Robinson, P.M., 1998. Inference-without-smoothing in the presence of nonparametric autocorrelation. Econometrica 66, 1163–1182] long-run variance estimator and thus does not involve the difficult problems of choosing a kernel function or a bandwidth parameter. We also demonstrate that, under various combinations of long memory processes and cross-section dimensions, the finite sample performance of our method for this class of long memory TSCS models is promising even though the time span is only 20. We then apply this method to re-examine the welfare spending studies of Hicks and Swank [Hicks, A., Swank, D., 1992. Politics, institutions and welfare spending in industrialized democraticies, 1960–1982. American Political Science Review 86, 658–674]. The testing results are different from the findings in Hicks and Swank (1992) and those in Beck and Katz [Beck N., Katz, J.N., 1995. What to do (and not to do) with time-series cross-section data. American Political Science Review 89, 634–647], because we find a weak but significant positive voter turnout effects when the number of differencing is equal to 1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper suggests a difference-based method for inference in the regression model involving fractionally integrated processes. Under suitable regularity conditions, our method can effectively deal with the inference problems associated with the regression model consisting of nonstationary, stationary and intermediate memory regressors, simultaneously. Although the difference-based method provides a very flexible modelling framework for empirical studies, the implementation of this method is extremely easy, because it completely avoids the difficult problems of choosing a kernel function, a bandwidth parameter, or an autoregressive lag length for the long-run variance estimation. The asymptotic local power of our method is investigated with a sequence of local data-generating processes (DGP) in what Davidson and MacKinnon [ Canadian Journal of Economics. (1985) Vol. 18, pp. 38–57] call ‘regression direction’. The simulation results indicate that the size control of our method is excellent even when the sample size is only 100, and the pattern of power performance is highly consistent with the theoretical finding from the asymptotic local power analysis conducted in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The existing studies based on the rational voter theory analyze voter turnout as the aggregate of individuals' binary choice of to vote or not to vote. However, when people need to travel to vote, the cost associated with different transportation modes directly affects their voting decisions. We thus generalize the rational voter theory by taking an individual's specific choice of transportation mode into account. Methods: We show that our proposed discrete choice model can be estimated via the approach of Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) (henceforth, BLP). We then use transportation and census data to analyze voters' behavior in Taiwan where absentee voting is not allowed. Results: As compared to the observed 30.14 percent turnout rates of travel‐to‐vote electorates in Taiwan's 2014 local elections, the counterfactual simulations herein suggest that the turnout rates would be 61.77 percent if absentee voting were to be allowed. Conclusion: The BLP method allows us to estimate a generalized rational voter model accounting for the transportation mode choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, people who own real estate should have advantage finding a partner in the marriage market. Empirical analyses along this line, however, face three issues. First, it is difficult to identify any causality for whether housing facilitates marriage or expected marriage facilitates a housing purchase. Second, survey samples usually do not cover very wealthy people, and so the observations are top coding in the wealth dimension. Third, getting married is a dynamic life cycle decision, and rich life-history data are rarely available. This paper uses registry data from Taiwan to estimate the impact of males' housing wealth on their first-marriage duration, taking into account all three issues mentioned above. We find that a 10% increase in real estate wealth increases probability of a man getting married in any particular year by 3.92%. Our finding suggests that housing or real estate is a status good in the marriage market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the time to first birth, treating coresidence with husband's parents and labor supply as endogenous and using representative data on Taiwanese married women born during 1933-1968. We use a full-information maximum likelihood estimator for a duration model with endogenous binary variables. Results controlling for endogeneity suggest that both coresidence and working are associated with a delay in childbearing, reversing the effect of coresidence on the timing of first birth but not that of working. Women in earlier cohorts tend to choose coresidency and not working, and an increasing number of women from later cohorts choose to do both or to work only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]