RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN HOMEOWNERSHIP and HOUSING WEALTH, 1970–1986

Black couples are found to own a disproportionately low share of aggregate housing wealth in the United States because they are less likely than whites to be homeowners and because black-owned houses have lower market values than white-owned houses. Probability of ownership and house value equations (corrected for selectivity bias) are estimated with national data for 1970, 1980, and 1986. Trends in racial differences in homeownership and house value are identified and reasons for their existence are investigated.     

NFL Draftnikology: Euclidean Metrics and Other Approaches to Scoring Ranking Predictions

With viewership of NFL (National Football League) football in the US rising above 20 million, interest in the NFL Draft has also been at all-time highs in recent years. Much of this interest is directed toward the “NFL draftniks” who provide draft predictions—so-called “mock drafts”—leading up to the NFL Draft. Despite increasing interest in “NFL draftnikology,” the scoring methodology used to evaluate mock NFL drafts lags far behind. This study offers a few alternative approaches, including a Euclidean metrics approach to evaluating mock NFL drafts. The usefulness of our methodologies extends to evaluation of economic and financial analysts.     

A partially adaptive estimator for the censored regression model based on a mixture of normal distributions

The goal of this paper is to introduce a partially adaptive estimator for the censored regression model based on an error structure described by a mixture of two normal distributions. The model we introduce is easily estimated by maximum likelihood using an EM algorithm adapted from the work of Bartolucci and Scaccia (Comput Stat Data Anal 48:821–834, 2005). A Monte Carlo study is conducted to compare the small sample properties of this estimator to the performance of some common alternative estimators of censored regression models including the usual tobit model, the CLAD estimator of Powell (J Econom 25:303–325, 1984), and the STLS estimator of Powell (Econometrica 54:1435–1460, 1986). In terms of RMSE, our partially adaptive estimator performed well. The partially adaptive estimator is applied to data on wife’s hours worked from Mroz (1987). In this application we find support for the partially adaptive estimator over the usual tobit model.     

Winning and ticket allotments in college football

This study focuses on a unique type of political and economic “contest” among various constituents in the state of Alabama. We examine the political and economic battle between Auburn University supporters and their athletic arch-rival, the University of Alabama. We provide a simple statistical analysis that supports the traditional view of “the home field advantage” in athletic contests by applied psychologists in previous studies (Greer, 1983 and Varca, 1980). However, our unique example offers a political arena, which the economic and political “agents” involved used to maintain their homefield advantages. The first solution is a so-called perpetual contract to maintain the game-site in Birmingham, Alabama; the final solutions have brought about a race to increase home stadium capacities by the various institutions. The article offers a unique story which the educator can employ as a pedagogical tool for elementary statistical analysis.