Parameter estimation for a word frequency distribution based on occupancy theory

Compromise Estimators between the generalized Bayes and Bayes estimators with respect to conjugate gamma priors under entropy loss are proposed. The proposed compromise estimators are compared with some suitable generalized Bayes estimators in terms of their frequentist risk performance. Also the RSL approach will be employed to compare the proposed compromise estimators and some admissible generalized Bayes estimators in terms of their Bayes risk performance.     

Inventories and the Three Phases of the Business Cycle

This article demonstrates that recessions typically are followed by high-growth recovery phases that push output back to its prerecession level. Thus postwar fluctuations in real output in the United States have consisted of three sequential phases rather than two—contractions, high-growth recoveries, and moderate-growth periods following recoveries. Data from before World War II also exhibit this pattern. For the postwar period, the three-phase pattern is shown to reflect swings in inventory investment and suggests that output fluctuations have an important transitory component. The evidence in this article supports DeLong and Summers's output-gaps view and Friedman's “plucking” model view of fluctuations.     

Explaining a productive decade

This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. productivity growth in recent years using both aggregate and industry-level data. We confirm the central role for information technology (IT) in the productivity revival during 1995–2000 and show that IT played a significant, though smaller, role after 2000. Productivity growth after 2000 appears to have been boosted by industry restructuring and cost cutting in response to profit pressures, an unlikely source of future strength. In addition, the incorporation of intangible capital into the growth accounting framework takes some of the luster off the performance of labor productivity since 2000 and makes the gain during 1995–2000 look larger than in the official data. Finally, we examine the outlook for trend growth in labor productivity; our estimate, though subject to much uncertainty, is centered at a year, faster than the lackluster pace that prevailed before 1995 but somewhat slower than the 1995–2006 average.     

The price-quality relationship: A heuristic model

An on-the-shop-floor experiment is carried out to determine the price-quality relationship for a number of toiletries. Three different and distinct demand curves are obtained. A heuristic model to describe these curves is constructed. The implications of this model for the profit-orientated businessman are then analysed.