This paper assesses Brazil's real convergence (1822–2019) through unit root tests and Markov Regime-Switching (MS) models in three different scenarios: towards (i) other six Latin American countries (LA6); (ii) Portugal; and (iii) the technological frontier country, the US. The extended unit root test results favour Brazil's very long-run real convergence towards LA6 and Portugal, but not the US. The estimated MS models, involving two different regimes, real convergence and real non-convergence/divergence, capture institutional quality's positive effect in promoting Brazil's real convergence.

When studying the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC’s) interest rate rule, some authors, such as Gonzalez-Astudillo [(2018) Journal of Monetary, Credit, and Banking 50(1), 115–154.], find evidence for changes in inflation and output gap responses. Others, such as Sims and Zha [(2006) American Economic Review 96(1), 54–81.], only find evidence for a change in the variance of the interest rate rule. In this paper, I develop a new two-regime Markov-switching model that probabilistically performs variable selection and identification of parameter change for each variable in the model. I find substantial evidence that there have been changes in the FOMC’s response to the unemployment gap and in the volatility of the rule. When the FOMC responds strongly to the unemployment gap, I find a bimodal density for the inflation response coefficient. Despite the bimodal density, there is a low probability that there have been changes in the FOMC’s response to inflation.

This study investigates the effects of material and symbolic quality attributes on the Cup of Excellence specialty coffee quality scores and prices. The estimates from the quality score equations suggest that material attributes are important determinants, but symbolic attributes have a greater explanatory power. The hedonic price estimations show that specialty coffee prices are mainly determined by symbolic attributes and market conditions such as the number of coffees in the auction. Overall, the study reveals that fruity, floral, sweet, spice, and sour acid are cuppers' and buyers' most favorite coffee flavors and aromas.

Technical regulations are increasingly visible in agricultural trade, yet their idiosyncratic nature has limited prior aggregate analysis. This article draws on a unique data source for systematic enumeration of the technical regulations questioned by one exporter among all of its trading partners in mid-1996. Political economy analysis indicates that barriers decrease when the relative contribution of agriculture to an economy increases, when the anticipated future level of protection through other forms of government intervention increases, and when economies are more open. Despite increased scrutiny and discipline by the World Trade Organization, technical barriers remain a significant impediment in world agricultural markets.

Cross-sectional data sets containing expenditure and quantity information are typically used to calculate quality-adjusted imputed prices. Do sample size and quality adjustment of price statistically alter estimates for own-price elasticities? This paper employs a data set pertaining to three food categories—pork, cheese, and food away from home—with four sample sizes for each food category. Twelve sample sizes were used for both adjusted and unadjusted prices to derive elasticities. No statistical differences were found between own-price elasticities among sample sizes. However, elasticities that were based on adjusted price imputations were significantly different from those that were based on unadjusted prices.

Typical supermarket chickens are produced with novel or controversial attributes. This continues despite contrasting growth in consumer interest in organic and natural foods. This study surveyed Delaware consumers' likelihood to purchase chicken given different attributes: free range, given antibiotics, irradiated, fed genetically modified (GM) feed, GM chicken, and price. Examining conjoint analysis data with a heteroskedastic two-limit tobit model, GM chicken and other novel attributes were found to lower purchase likelihood significantly. Understanding these results should help the industry meet consumer preferences while aiding its continued expansion to benefit workers and growers across the South.

Treatment of time in travel cost models has been a source of contention among economists. The debate persists because welfare estimates, which are the principal objectives of these studies, are highly sensitive to the treatment of time. The present study examines the dual role of on-site time using evidence from two wilderness areas in Alabama. The empirical results comply with the theoretical expectation that on-site time is both a source of utility and cost. The exclusion of on-site time from demand functions results in biased parameter estimates. In particular, it yields smaller own-price coefficients and higher welfare estimates.

One source of phosphorous pollution in areas of high chicken production isrunoff from fields using fertilizer from these operations. A potentialsolution is to feed chicken high available phosphorus (HAP) corn, reducingphosphorus in manure. This study examined consumer purchase likelihood ofchickens fed HAP, created traditionally or through genetic modification, andother genetically modified (GM) corn including Bt and Roundup-ready. Surveyresults from the Delmarva Peninsula found considerable interest in non-GMHAP corn, although GM HAP corn was not typically viewed as more acceptablethan other GM varieties. Overall, the marketplace appears open to productsgeared toward environmental benefits.

We reassess the effect of new information in the Hogs and Pigs Reports (HPR) focusing on announcements' rationality and alternative surprises. HPR announcements are irrational estimates of final estimates, and market expectations are irrational estimates of HPR numbers. Using the market's best forecast and incorporating final estimates, we modify conventional information measures. Despite differences as large as 33 cents/cwt in price response, findings suggest there is little to differentiate among surprise measures. Regardless, the message that HPR provides new information to the market is strongly supported. On balance, marketing (breeding) information has a larger effect on short-term (long-term) price changes.

In contingent valuation surveys, there is a range of possible explanations for zero bids, from true zero responses consistent with economic decisions to protest responses. According to the empirical literature, which analyzes the determinants of willingness-to-pay (WTP) values from a bidding process, the double-hurdle is the most appropriate econometric approach to account for zero and protest WTP. However, when the number of protest responses is too small to be explicitly modelled, this approach is not applicable. This frequently occurs in critical health care situations, where large samples are not easily available. We discuss the possible econometric strategies for use in such cases. For illustrative purposes, the different models were applied to an empirical situation, which refers to the location preference (i.e. home versus hospital) from French cancer patients for blood transfusion. Our results show that protest responses should not be discarded, even if present in small numbers, and that the type II Tobit and the standard truncated regression model could both be applied. However, since from small finite samples, the most robust estimation is obtained from the bootstrap method with a high number of replications, the truncated regression model, easily applicable, weakly computer time-consuming and not subject to identification problems in this case contrary to the type II Tobit, should be the econometric strategy of choice for various WTP studies in the healthcare field.

In the present study we investigate the relationship between foreign ownership and innovation activities using the firmlevel data of the third Community Innovation Survey (CIS) covering twelve European countries. Probit estimates based on 28,000 firms' observations show that foreign-owned firms are more innovative than domestic firms, particularly in the New EU Member States. However, results from the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of the differences in the percentage of innovating firms between foreign-owned and domestic firms reveals that the differences are mainly due to the different firm characteristics rather than the differences in coefficients. In particular, the dominance of foreign-owned firms in the largest firm size group is the main factor contributing to the gap in the percentage of innovators between foreign-owned firms and domestic firms. Furthermore, using the fractional logit model, we find that in the New EU Member states, foreign ownership has a positive and significant impact on the share of market novelties as well as on the share of new products in turnover. In this case, the results from the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis indicate that the ownership difference in the share of innovative sales is not due to the differences in the observed firms' characteristics.