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uchicago-computation-workshop / ali_hortacsu

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estimation of model parameters #2

Open jgdenby opened 6 years ago

jgdenby commented 6 years ago

Thanks for presenting – this work is really cool!

I was curious about one of your model's parameters and how it was estimated. On page 9, you discuss parameterizing the symmetric trade cost function in terms of the Euclidean distance between the two cities, in addition to a distance elasticity term. I'm curious whether you entertained the inclusion of any other geographical parameters, such as topography? I imagine that, particularly at the time, two pairs of cities that are equally far apart might have different costs associated with travel due to terrain, facility of transport, routes, etc.

Moreover, was distance elasticity assumed to homogeneous across cities? I wonder if it might be the case that certain cities were more amenable to trade than others, which might impact how trade was dispersed.

tamos commented 6 years ago

On a related note, it would be interesting to hear more about the process for arriving at crop yields (~pp 22) as a control for local amenities. I find it interesting that topography, wealth (gold/silver), and water sources were not as robust for this purpose.