Endogenous preferences, Time preference, Discounting, Optimal Growth, Monotonicity, Lattice programming, C61, D99, O41,

This paper investigates the stochastic nature of the unemployment rate allowing for cross-section dependence from a panel of US state-level data. We first employ the PANIC method to identify the common and idiosyncratic components. Powerful recursive mean adjustment (RMA) methods are used to test for unit roots. We find significant evidence of a nonstationary common component when the data from the most recent recession are included.Even when stationarity is empirically supported, the bias-corrected half-life of the common component appears very long, casting doubt on the usefulness of the natural rate hypothesis.

We utilize the nonlinear unit root tests proposed by Park and Shintani (2005) and find strong evidence of nonlinear mean reversion between a US stock index and the stock indices in France, Germany, Italy and the UK. We identified an inaction band where deviations of these international stock indices from the US stock index follow a unit root process. Outside the band, however, they exhibit strong mean reversion properties. We show that standard linear unit root tests are not able to detect nonlinear cointegration and will yield the erroneous conclusion that the stock indices are not cointegrated.

Using U.S. data from 1950 to 2010, we analyze to what extent inflation raises the incidence of property crime. To match our theoretical predictions, we consider different types of property crime (larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and robbery) and broad and narrow definitions of inflation separately. We control for the state of the business cycle and demographic changes over time explicitly. Unobserved or difficult‐to‐measure determinants of property crime are captured through a stochastic‐trend specification within a state‐space framework. We find a robust statistical link between inflation and each of the four property crime rates. Our findings are robust to alternative definitions of inflation and the inclusion or exclusion of different control variables. In terms of policy, our findings suggest that monetary policy that creates inflation has costly spillover effects. (JEL J10, J11)

Monopoly, Consumer surplus, Welfare bounds, D42, D60,