The common understanding regarding the profession of architecture is that the designer is only involved in a project up to the delivery of the building, but is almost never included in an extended role or level of involvement beyond this point. My thesis project tries to envision the architect as an "impresario of change" who not only completes the building, but afterwards begins to curate the specific material aspects of this environment according to its varying "seasons", which might include changes in its performance as well as ambient changes. Using the example of a hotel this proposed "impresario of change" model seeks to question preconceived ideas about the boundaries of our profession within a new economy built around the concept of experience and, at the same time, to examine the material implications of such a redefinition.

We present several essays on topics in airline economics. The first essay presents a model of U.S. aircraft demand. This joint model of demand for and supply of commercial air service allow us to simulate the effects of emerging technologies in engine design capabilities and in aircraft capacities on airline fleet sizes. The second essay examines the possibility that relatively high prices in the European airline industry are due to market power. We examine the market conduct of firms in the European airline industry and find little evidence that competitive pricing is violated on average. In the third essay, we present an integrated model of world aircraft demand. We estimate the demand for both passenger and cargo services and tie this demand to cost analysis of the carriers. Our cost model is used to generate derived demand schedules for the factors of production, in particular flying capital. We take a brief look at bootstrap techniques in the forth essay. Bootstrapping has become a powerful technique for estimating sampling distributions of statistics since its introduction by Efron (1979). We discuss the bootstrapping procedure and present some small sample evidence of its effectiveness through Monte Carlo experiments. The fifth essay applies the bootstrap to a model of U.S. aircraft demand. We bootstrap confidence intervals for Allen-Uzawa partial elasticities of substitution and price elasticities. We find prediction intervals for forecasts of airline's fleet size using the bootstrap. The sixth essay suggests an application of leapfrogging measures to the airline industry. A detailed look at Hultberg and Postert (1998) is presented. Three rank mobility measures are presented and used to determine the amount of leapfrogging in the data. A human capital augmented Solow-Swan model is fit to the data and we use bootstrapping to calibrate the model.

In the first chapter; we consider nonlinear transformations of random walks driven by thick-tailed innovations with infinite means or variances. In particular, we show how nonlinearity, nonstationarity, and thick tails interact to generate persistency in memory, and we clearly demonstrate that this triad may generate a broad spectrum of persistency patterns. Time series generated by nonlinear transformations of random walks with thick-tailed innovations have asymptotic autocorrelations that decay very slowly as the number of lags increases or do not even decay at all and remain constant at all lags. We also discuss nonlinear regression asymptotics when the regressor is observable and an alternative regression technique when it is unobservable. We use our model to analyze two empirical applications: exchange rates governed by a target zone and electricity price spikes driven by capacity shortfalls. In the second chapter of the dissertation, we show that typical tests for purchasing power parity using target zone exchange rates are inherently misspecified. The real exchange rate cannot be mean-reverting by construction, since the nominal exchange rate is generated by a nonlinear transformation of a nonstationary economic fundamental. As an alternative, we propose basing the real exchange rate (and thus the test) on conditional expectations of the fundamental itself. Real exchange rates based on the true fundamental may in fact exhibit mean reversion, if the long-run purchasing power parity hypothesis holds. The final chapter investigates the statistical properties of the Kalman filter for state space models including integrated time series. In particular, we derive the full asymptotics of maximum likelihood estimation for a prototypical class of such models: those with a single latent common stochastic trend. We demonstrate the utility of the state space model by extracting a common stochastic trend in three empirical analyses: interest rates, stock return volatility and trading volume, and a stock price index.

This dissertation develops efficient semiparametric estimation of parameters and expectations in dynamic nonlinear systems and analyzes the role of environmental factors in productivity growth accounting. The first essay considers the estimation of a general class of dynamic nonlinear systems. The semiparametric efficiency bound and efficient score are established for the problems. Using an M-estimator based on the efficient score, the feasible form of the semiparametric efficient estimators is worked out for several explicit assumptions regarding the degree of dependence between the predetermined variables and the disturbances of the model. Using this result, the second essay develops semiparametric estimation of the expectation of known functions of observable variables and unknown parameters in the class of dynamic nonlinear models. The semiparametric efficiency bound for this problem is established and an estimator that achieves the bound is worked out for two explicit assumptions. For the assumption of independence, the residual-based predictors proposed by Brown and Mariano (1989) are shown to be semiparametric efficient. Under unconditional mean zero assumption, I proposed an improved heteroskedastic autocorrelation consistent estimator. The third essay explores the directional distance function method to analyze productivity growth. The method explicitly evaluates the role of undesirable outputs of the economy, such as carbon dioxide and other green-house gases, have on the frontier production process which we specify as a piecewise linear and convex boundary function. We decompose productivity growth into efficiency change (catching up) and technology change (innovation). We test the statistical significance of the estimates using recently developed bootstrap method. We also explore implications for growth of total factor productivity in the OECD and Asia economies.

This thesis extends the research on the calculation of the effective tax rate on capital income and the effects of taxes on foreign direct investment. The first essay applies the King and Fullerton marginal effective tax rate methodology to a wide range of industries, investors and different types of investments for 1984 to 1997. In the second essay, I modify the basic methodology to analyze the taxation of foreign investors in the United States. The interaction between foreign tax systems and the tax system of the US is analyzed and the marginal effective tax rates for investors from five countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan and United Kingdom) are calculated. The third essay uses the marginal effective tax rates estimated in the second essay to carry out a quantitative analysis of the determinants of foreign direct investment in the United States. Non-tax variables included in this model include proxies for intangible assets, imperfect competition in an industry, and a variable that captures the notion of knowledge capital. By integrating the public finance and industrial organization literature on foreign direct investment, I obtain more accurate estimates of the determinants of foreign direct investment in the United States. The empirical results show that both the overall and corporate marginal effective tax rates exert a significant influence over foreign direct investment flows into the United States.

Recent studies contend that answers to questions in the Survey of Consumer Finances reveal whether or not households are credit constrained. In these studies, households are defined as constrained if they applied for credit unsuccessfully or were discouraged from applying by the prospect of refusal. Households that applied successfully are classified as unconstrained. This approach is problematic in that it presumes that households do not take into account the presence and extent of credit constraints when formulating their loan demands. Credit constraints could have a more pervasive effect than precluding households from applying successfully. Anticipation of such constraints can also affect the amount of credit that households request. Successful applicants, therefore, need not attain the level of consumption that would be optimal in the absence of encountering a current borrowing constraint. Furthermore, unsuccessful applicants for loans comprise only a fraction of constrained households, namely those that overestimated the size of the loans likely to be granted. This dissertation uses a simple model of intertemporal optimization to demonstrate the effects of borrowing constraints on the demand for credit. It estimates a model of total debt of the households that applied for credit successfully. A key finding is that the demand for debt by particular groups that are likely to be constrained depends positively on current income. This is consistent with the presence of binding constraints among households that previous studies classified as unconstrained. Furthermore, this dissertation estimates a probit model of the outcome of the credit application. The results are interpreted in light of the hypothesis that unsuccessful loan applications primarily represent a forecasting error by households. This allows one to explain the lack of significance or apparent inconsistency of the coefficient estimates of certain variables.

Chapter One utilizes a hedonic pricing model with a Box-Cox functional form to discern the importance of air quality in the housing prices of various neighborhoods in Houston, Texas. The sample of over 4000 homes employed in the model includes not only detailed physical characteristics of the various properties, but also less tangible values of ozone level, crime, education, and others, which differ according to neighborhood. Chapter Two presents the results of a survey of Houston homeowners regarding ozone levels around the city. The responses are tested, and then corrected, for statistical coherence. In Chapter Three, the subjective survey data is used in the objective (hedonic) pricing model developed in Chapter One. The compelling issue is how the perceptions of homebuyers compare to observed ozone levels in the hedonic model, and which measure offers a better fit with the housing price data. Using 2-digit United States input-output accounts, Chapter Four features calculation and detailed algebraic decomposition of the U.S. energy intensities of production from 1987 to 1997. More specifically, the chapter seeks to determine whether technology improvement or change in segments of final demand contribute most to the decline in energy intensity over the period.

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This study examines the issue of economic optimization associated with mine development and extraction decisions, focusing on the choice of an appropriate installed capacity as well as the control of the cutoff grade and capacity utilization variables. It shows how capacity and production strategies lead to an enhanced economic outcome of resource development and extraction. / An important aspect of the study is the development of deterministic algorithms for cutoff grade and production rate optimization within existing mine facilities. These variables are determined by maximizing the present value of future benefits associated with mine production. Two opposing economic forces are at play in the optimizing process. A higher present value can be achieved by increasing operating profits through a higher cutoff grade and/or extraction rate. This strategy decreases the losses due to discounting. However, a higher cutoff grade generally leads to higher operating costs, and may also result in the loss of ore. A higher production rate within an existing mining system, likewise, increases unit operating costs. These reduce operating profits and act to lower the present value. / Both static and dynamic optimization methods are developed. Static optimization refers to determining the constant cutoff grade and production rate that maximize the total discounted operating profits. Dynamic optimization refers to the situation in which periodical adjustments are allowed for the production variables. In this case, declining cutoff grade and production rate schedules within an established mining system yield higher total discounted profits over the static solution. In general, the schedule is controlled by the discount rate, as well as by trade-offs between ore quality and reserves, and between production rate, cutoff grade and production costs. / The study subsequently focuses on the choice of installed capacity at the mine development stage. The objective here is to find the installed capacity level that maximizes the net present value of the project. The consideration of capital costs alone tends to limit the increase in installed capacity. The preproduction period has a similar effect. When both variables are combined, the increasing preproduction period and capital costs associated with higher levels of installed capacity impose a severe burden on the maximization process, causing limitations to the rising trend of optimum installed capacity at high discount rates.

The economic reforms under way in most developing countries are directed towards the establishment of an open market economy. These efforts have been initiated in the belief that it is within such an environment that resources could be best utilised in furtherance of economic development. Increasing attention is being directed towards competition law and policy as an essential tool for the attainment of this objective. / However, the role and design of competition law and policy ought to reflect the peculiar economic, political and social conditions prevalent in developing countries. Thus, one cannot expect that models of competition suited to developed market economies are applicable ipso facto to developing ones. / This thesis identifies some of the peculiarities of the developing country environment, including the nature of domestic markets, and the confluence of political and economic power, and suggests the manner in which these may have to influence competition law and policy in such countries.