Anthropometrics is a research program that explores the extent to which economic processes affect human biological processes using height and weight as markers. This agenda differs from health economics in the sense that instead of studying diseases or longevity, macro manifestations of well-being, it focuses on cellular-level processes that determine the extent to which the organism thrives in its socio-economic and epidemiological environment. Thus, anthropometric indicators are used as a proxy measure for the biological standard of living as complements to conventional measures based on monetary units.
Using physical stature as a marker, we enabled the profession to learn about the well-being of children and youth for whom market-generated monetary data are not abundant even in contemporary societies. It is now clear that economic transformations such as the onset of the Industrial Revolution and modern economic growth were accompanied by negative externalities that were hitherto unknown. Moreover, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the Welfare States of Western and Northern Europe take better care of the biological needs of their citizens than the market-oriented health-care system of the United States.
Obesity has reached pandemic proportions in the United States affecting 40% of the population. It is fostered by a sedentary and harried lifestyle, by the diminution in self-control, the spread of labor-saving technologies, and the rise of instant gratification characteristic of post-industrial society. The spread of television and a fast-food culture in the 1950s were watershed developments in this regard that accelerated the process. Obesity poses a serious health risk including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some types of cancer and its cost reaches $150 billion per annum in the United States or about $1,400 per capita. We conclude that the economy influences not only mortality and health but reaches bone-deep into the cellular level of the human organism. In other words, the economy is inextricably intertwined with human biological processes.
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Anthropometrics: The Intersection of Economics and Human Biology
John Komlos
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Quantile Regression for Panel Data and Factor Models
Carlos Lamarche
For nearly 25 years, advances in panel data and quantile regression were developed almost completely in parallel, with no intersection until the work by Koenker in the mid-2000s. The early theoretical work in statistics and economics raised more questions than answers, but it encouraged the development of several promising new approaches and research that offered a better understanding of the challenges and possibilities at the intersection of the literatures. Panel data quantile regression allows the estimation of effects that are heterogeneous throughout the conditional distribution of the response variable while controlling for individual and time-specific confounders. This type of heterogeneous effect is not well summarized by the average effect. For instance, the relationship between the number of students in a class and average educational achievement has been extensively investigated, but research also shows that class size affects low-achieving and high-achieving students differently. Advances in panel data include several methods and algorithms that have created opportunities for more informative and robust empirical analysis in models with subject heterogeneity and factor structure.
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Stock-Flow Models of Market Frictions and Search
Eric Smith
Stock-flow matching is a simple and elegant framework of dynamic trade in differentiated goods. Flows of entering traders match and exchange with the stocks of previously unsuccessful traders on the other side of the market. A buyer or seller who enters a market for a single, indivisible good such as a job or a home does not experience impediments to trade. All traders are fully informed about the available trading options; however, each of the available options in the stock on the other side of the market may or may not be suitable. If fortunate, this entering trader immediately finds a viable option in the stock of available opportunities and trade occurs straightaway. If unfortunate, none of the available opportunities suit the entrant. This buyer or seller now joins the stocks of unfulfilled traders who must wait for a new, suitable partner to enter.
Three striking empirical regularities emerge from this microstructure. First, as the stock of buyers does not match with the stock of sellers, but with the flow of new sellers, the flow of new entrants becomes an important explanatory variable for aggregate trading rates. Second, the traders’ exit rates from the market are initially high, but if they fail to match quickly the exit rates become substantially slower. Third, these exit rates depend on different variables at different phases of an agent’s stay in the market. The probability that a new buyer will trade successfully depends only on the stock of sellers in the market. In contrast, the exit rate of an old buyer depends positively on the flow of new sellers, negatively on the stock of old buyers, and is independent of the stock of sellers.
These three empirical relationships not only differ from those found in the familiar search literature but also conform to empirical evidence observed from unemployment outflows. Moreover, adopting the stock-flow approach enriches our understanding of output dynamics, employment flows, and aggregate economic performance. These trading mechanics generate endogenous price dispersion and price dynamics—prices depend on whether the buyer or the seller is the recent entrant, and on how many viable traders were waiting for the entrant, which varies over time. The stock-flow structure has provided insights about housing, temporary employment, and taxicab markets.
