0000000000711060
AUTHOR
Michael S. Delgado
Should all microfinance institutions mobilize microsavings? Evidence from economies of scope
Published version of an article from the journal: Empirical Economics. Also available from the publisher on SpringetLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00181-014-0861-3 We extend a recently developed generalized local polynomial estimator into a semiparametric smooth coefficient framework to estimate a generalized cost function. The advantage of the generalized local polynomial approach is that we can simultaneously choose the degree of polynomial for each continuous nonparametric regressor and the bandwidths via data-driven methods. We provide estimates of scope economies from the joint production of microloans and microdeposits for a dataset of Microfinance Institutions from over 50 countrie…
Evolution of the Global Distribution of Carbon Dioxide: A Finite Mixture Analysis
Economists and environmental policymakers have recently begun advocating a bottom-up approach to climate change mitigation, focusing on reduction targets for groups of nations, rather than large scale global policies. We advance this discussion by taking a quantitative perspective, focusing on econometric identification of groups of countries that have statistically similar distributions of carbon emissions using a broad range of finite mixture models. Nearly all of our results yield a consistent pattern: after 1980, there are two distinct emissions distributions, and that these distributions continue to evolve over time. We provide a rigorous analysis of these distributional differences al…