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A regression kink design (RKD or RK design) can be used to identify casual effects in settings where the regressor of interest is a kinked function of an assignment variable. In this chapter, we apply an RKD approach to study the effect of unemployment benefits on the duration of joblessness in Austria, and discuss implementation issues that may arise in similar settings, including the use of bandwidth selection algorithms and bias-correction procedures. Although recent developments in nonparametric estimation (Calonico, Cattaneo, & Farrell, 2014; Imbens & Kalyanaraman, 2012) are sometimes interpreted by practitioners as pointing to a default estimation procedure, we show that in any given application different procedures may perform better or worse. In particular, Monte Carlo simulations based on data-generating processes that closely resemble the data from our application show that some asymptotically dominant procedures may actually perform worse than “sub-optimal” alternatives in a given empirical application.

We examine the two-level nested constant elasticity of substitution production function where both capital and labor are disaggregated in two classes. We propose a normalized system estimation method to retrieve estimates of the inter- and intra-class elasticities of substitution and factor-augmenting technical progress coefficients. The system is estimated for US data for the 1963–2006 period. Our findings reveal that skilled and unskilled labor classes are gross substitutes, capital structures and equipment are gross complements, and aggregate capital and aggregate labor are gross complements with an elasticity of substitution close to 0.5. We discuss the implications of our findings and methodology for the analysis of the causes of the increase in the skill premium and, by implication, inequality in a growing economy.

I discuss economic approaches to the demand for harmfully addictive substances with an emphasis on the role of money prices. First, I examine trends in the real prices and in the prevalence of the use of cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in the U.S.A. Then I present estimates of time-series demand functions. Next, I discuss how economists have modified their traditional model of consumer behaviour to incorporate the addictive aspects of illegal substances. I conclude with implications for tax policy and for the lively and contentious debate concerning the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.

The correlations between mechanical behaviour, tensile strength, and rock parameters of metasedimentary rock samples in Karak, Pahang’s New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM) were statistically evaluated from the rock mechanic laboratory works at the selected sections around 2,000 m of the tunnel (named as NATM-1). According to a statistical analysis, lithotypes, geological structures, and region geology have a significant impact on the mechanical behaviour of the metasedimentary rock. In the Brazilian test, the fracture behaviour of the disc specimens was highly related to the reliability and precision of the experimental data by validations of methods. In this work, the impact of different loading methods and rock lithotypes on the failure mechanism of Brazilian discs was examined utilising five different metasedimentary rock types and three different loading methods. During the loading operation, the strain and displacement fields of the specimens were recorded and evaluated using a computerised strain gauge system. The rock types, according to experimental data, have a significant impact on the peak load and deformation properties of Brazilian discs. With the method below, tensile strength point of a disc specimen is clearly regulated by the material stiffness and tensile–compression ratio. Seismic occurrences have had a substantial impact on changing the rock and exerting forces that may affect its mechanical characteristics as well as its vulnerability to weathering effects or discontinuities. As a result, the goal of this study is to look into the connection between rock mechanics and metasedimentary rock stress analysis in NATM-1, Karak, Pahang.

The aim of this section is to develop a model of the linkage between the macro-dynamics of price and the micro-dynamics of individual buyers and sellers, drawing on classical micro-economic theory (Jehle & Reny, 2001). Jehle and Reny's book is in three parts. The first part discusses economic agents, namely consumers and firms. The second part discusses markets, in other words what happens when the economic agents interact; and welfare, namely the social value of the outcome. The third part is on strategic behaviour, covering game theory, information economics and auctions and mechanism design. Here, the emphasis will be on the core concepts rather than on the mathematical details. In emphasising the core concepts, attention will be drawn to the fact that these core concepts have a much wider range than simply micro-economics.

This chapter explores the question – where is the economy? In taking up this question, I explore the action of economists in making the economy, framed in the place of ‘place’ in the economy and how the politics of economic data and calculation and boundaries make economies. In this way, I argue for a performative understanding of regional economics where the economy can be said to be made, often out of real things such as hospitals, factories, shops and schools, and infrastructure, but also out of social practices that echo out of the field of economics into institutions and ways of thinking calculatedly.

To make this case of this approach, and to grasp the slippery fish of where the economy is, I introduce autoethnographic materials from my experience of being a regional economic commentator, holding forth on the Waterford economy. These empirics relay the everyday methods of economic analysis as a material and political practice, alighting on the data, calculations and boundaries that go into making the economy. Here the curious relationship between the economist and their economy, the dancer and the dance come into view and how people, including myself, call an economy into being.