Adaptive Multiple Importance Sampling

Abstract. The Adaptive Multiple Importance Sampling algorithm is aimed at an optimal recycling of past simulations in an iterated importance sampling (IS) scheme. The difference with earlier adaptive IS implementations like Population Monte Carlo is that the importance weights of all simulated values, past as well as present, are recomputed at each iteration, following the technique of the deterministic multiple mixture estimator of Owen & Zhou (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 95, 2000, 135). Although the convergence properties of the algorithm cannot be investigated, we demonstrate through a challenging banana shape target distribution and a population genetics example that the improvement brought by this technique is substantial.     

A Research Note on the Determinants of Protest Participation: Examining Socialization and Biographical Availability

A significant amount of research has been conducted on exploring the determinants of protest participation in the 1960s. There have been few quantitative studies, however, that explore the determinants of more recent protest participation. Utilizing multivariate analysis on data from the 1990 American Citizen Participation Study, this research note explores whether the determinants of more recent protest participation are comparable to the determinants of protest participation in the 1960s. Socialization and biographical availability are a primary focus of interest. Findings show that demographic predictors of more recent protest involvement differ from factors that predicted protest involvement in the 1960s. Parental socialization is not as influential today as it was in the 1960s while biographical availability continues to be an important determinant of protest participation.     

Estimating Archimedean Copulas in High Dimensions

Abstract. This article presents a novel estimation procedure for high‐dimensional Archimedean copulas. In contrast to maximum likelihood estimation, the method presented here does not require derivatives of the Archimedean generator. This is computationally advantageous for high‐dimensional Archimedean copulas in which higher‐order derivatives are needed but are often difficult to obtain. Our procedure is based on a parameter‐dependent transformation of the underlying random variables to a one‐dimensional distribution where a minimum‐distance method is applied. We show strong consistency of the resulting minimum‐distance estimators to the case of known margins as well as to the case of unknown margins when pseudo‐observations are used. Moreover, we conduct a simulation comparing the performance of the proposed estimation procedure with the well‐known maximum likelihood approach according to bias and standard deviation.     

ON DISTANCE METRICS IN LOCATION PROBLEMS

Product space metrics reflect the complementarity of product attributes and lead to different geometries in multidimensional spaces. This matters for optimal product positioning. I consider how a planner should design two substitute public goods with multiple attributes to best serve different needs. Attribute complementarity affects whether a given menu dominates another (using an extension of the Pareto criterion). Distancing the goods proportionately in every attribute guarantees improvement when tastes are maximally diverse. The intuition is that the planner must minimize overlap in the populations the goods serve, since benefits are wasted in appealing to the same individual with two offerings. (JEL C65, D78, H41)     

REPUTATION,PRICE, AND DEATH: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ART PRICE FORMATION

We analyze how an artist's death influences the market prices of her works of art. Death has two opposing effects on art prices. By irrevocably restricting the artist's oeuvre, prices, ceteris paribus, increase when the artist dies. On the other hand, an untimely death may well frustrate the collectors' hopes of owning artwork that will, as the artist's career progresses, become generally known and appreciated. By frustrating expected future name recognition, death impacts negatively on art prices. In conjunction, these two channels of influence give rise to a hump‐shaped relationship between age at death and death‐induced price changes. Using transactions from fine art auctions, we show that the empirically identified death effects indeed conform to our theoretical predictions. We derive our results from hedonic art price regressions, making use of a dataset which exceeds the sample size of traditional studies in cultural economics by an order of magnitude. (JEL Z11, J24, G12)     

GENDER,MORTALITY, AND CORPOREAL INEQUALITY

Most previous empirical analyses of gender inequality have focused on modern economic indicators such as income. The advancement of theory on gender stratification requires detailed analysis of indicators with greater endurance and prevalence in world-historical terms. Sex mortality differentials are presented as cross-cultural indicators of corporeal gender inequality, defined as differential access to basic bodily resources for life and health. Indeed, mortality differentials represent a more fundamental form of gender inequality, in that women first must be alive before they may be denied access to other resources such as equal pay. Analysis of United Nations and World Bank data on developed and developing countries evidence the importance of ecological, economic, and familial explanations in determining corporeal gender inequality. Women's familial roles are found to be more important for gender inequalities in death at younger ages, and women's economic roles are more important for death at older ages. Implications of the results for mortality decline and gender stratification theory are discussed.     

On Finding and Interviewing the Needles in the Haystack: The Use of Multiplicity Sampling

A multiplicity sample of a relatively rare population—Vietnameraveterans—provides insight into the following fieldissues: yield, location problems, coverage bias, and the effectof inclusion rule, i.e., eligible kin nominators. Here, thelatter included parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. The resultantyield was double that of a conventional sample but was muchhigher for black and Mexican-American veterans than for whites.Location problems (on which there was little prior knowledge)were less serious than anticipated, requiring persistence butnot extravagant expenditures to solve. Undercoverage bias wasreduced by "nonselective" screening; this raised location cost,however. Relative yield, an indicator of selection bias, variedby kin category. Parents showed a higher relative yield thandid siblings, while aunts and uncles were strikingly low innominations relative to their numbers.     

COMMUNICATION AND INCENTIVE MECHANISMS BASED ON GROUP PERFORMANCE: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF NONPOINT POLLUTION CONTROL

This article considers whether communication can improve the efficacy of incentive mechanisms designed to correct the problem of moral hazard in groups. In particular, we use experimental economics methods to study environmental targeting instruments proposed by Segerson (1988) for regulating a group of nonpoint source polluters based on ambient concentrations. We find that communication greatly affects group performance, enhancing the efficiency of instruments involving fixed fines but leading to overcompliance, and hence inefficiency, in marginal tax/subsidy instruments. These results have implications for future theoretical development of group performance mechanisms as well as the design of public policies. (JEL H23 , C92 )