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This paper surveys econometric studies investigating the relationship between R&D and productivity at the firm level and assesses the results obtained so far and some of the problems encountered. The findings reviewed fall naturally into three major categories: based on the cross-sectional or time-series dimensions of the data and specified in terms of the elasticity of R&D or the rate of return to R&D. In view of the problems involved in modeling the effects of R&D on productivity and in measuring the appropriate variables, it is an agreeable surprise that most studies have managed to produce statistically significant and frequently plausible estimates. However, many of the current studies are not fully comparable and their results still leave much to be desired. The task of achieving progress is an arduous one.

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This paper studies the returns to seniority, the returns to experience, and the effects of seniority and experience at the time of a quit or layoff on changes in the job match specific component of wages. We show that these returns are not identified in widely used regression models that relate the wage changes of stayers, quits, and layoffs to tenure and experience. We deal with the identification of problems in two ways. First, we obtain theoretical bounds on key unidentified parameters using a simple model of wages and mobility. Second, we check the implications of assumptions about the linear tenure slope for the estimates of the returns to tenure, experience, and the effect of tenure on job match gains. We have three main empirical findings. First, there is a large return to general labor market experience that is independent of job shopping. Second, the return to tenure is probably above the Altonji and Shakotko's (1987) estimate but far below OLS estimates. Third, quits results in substantial job match gains for inexperienced workers. Layoffs are associated with the substantial job match losses for workers who have been on the job for over a year.

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It is not common for an entire scholarly literature to be based on a fallacy, that is, 'on faulty reasoning; misleading or unsound argument'. The 'fiscal theory of the price level', recently re-developed by Woodford, Cochrane, Sims and others, is an example of a fatally flawed research programme. The source of the fallacy is an economic misspecification. The proponents of the fiscal theory of the price level do not accept the fundamental proposition that the government's intertemporal budget constraint is a constraint on the government's instruments that must be satisfied for all admissible values of the economy-wide endogenous variables. Instead they require it to be satisfied only in equilibrium. This economic misspecification has implications for the mathematical or logical properties of the equilibria supported by models purporting to demonstrate the properties of the fiscal approach. These include: overdetermined (internally inconsistent) equilibria; anomalies like the apparent ability to price things that do not exist; the need for arbitrary restrictions on the exogenous and predetermined variables in the government's budget constraint; and anomalous behaviour of the equilibrium' price sequences, including behaviour that will ultimately violate physical resource constraints. The issue is of more than academic interest. Policy conclusions could be drawn from the fiscal theory of the price level that would be harmful if they influenced the actual behaviour of the fiscal and monetary authorities. The fiscal theory of the price level implies that a government could exogenously fix its real spending, revenue and seigniorage plans, and that the general price level would adjust the real value of its contractual nominal debt obligations so as to ensure government solvency. When reality dawns, the result could be painful fiscal tightening, government default, or unplanned recourse to the inflation tax.

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The reordering of transactions from "high-to-low" is a controversial bank practice thought to maximize fees paid by low-income customers on overdrawn accounts. We exploit multiple class-action lawsuits resulting in mandatory changes to this practice, coupled with payday lending data, to show that after banks cease high-to-low reordering, low-income individuals reduce borrowing from alternative lenders. These consumers increase consumption, experience long-term improvements in overall financial health, and gain access to lower-cost loans in the traditional system. These findings highlight that aggressive bank practices create a demand for alternative financial services, highlighting an important link between the traditional and alternative financial systems.

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The second edition of Non-extensive Entropy Econometrics for Low Frequency Series provides a new and robust power-law-based, non-extensive entropy econometrics approach to the economic modelling of ill-behaved inverse problems. Particular attention is paid to national account-based general equilibrium models known for their relative complexity.In theoretical terms, the approach generalizes Gibbs-Shannon-Golan entropy models, which are useful for describing ergodic phenomena. In essence, this entropy econometrics approach constitutes a junction of two distinct concepts: Jayne's maximum entropy principle and the Bayesian generalized method of moments. Rival econometric techniques are not conceptually adapted to solving complex inverse problems or are seriously limited when it comes to practical implementation.Recent literature showed that amplitude and frequency of macroeconomic fluctuations do not substantially diverge from many other extreme events, natural or human-related, once they are explained in the same time (or space) scale. Non-extensive entropy is a precious device for econometric modelling even in the case of low frequency series, since outputs evolving within the Gaussian attractor correspond to the Tsallis entropy limiting case of Tsallis q-parameter around unity. This book introduces a sub-discipline called Non-extensive Entropy Econometrics or, using a recent expression, Superstar Generalised Econometrics. It demonstrates, using national accounts-based models, that this approach facilitates solving nonlinear, complex inverse problems, previously considered intractable, such as the constant elasticity of substitution class of functions.This new proposed approach could extend the frontier of theoretical and applied econometrics.

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