A multivariate analysis of forecast disagreement: Confronting models of disagreement with survey data

This paper documents multivariate forecast disagreement among professional forecasters and discusses implications for models of heterogeneous expectation formation. Disagreement varies over time and is positively correlated with general (economic) uncertainty. The degree to which individual forecasters disagree with the average forecast tends to persist over time. Models of heterogeneous expectation formation can be modified by introducing heterogeneous signal-to-noise ratios to match this feature. Furthermore, disagreement about correlations of different macroeconomic variables is high on average. In general, multivariate forecast data can be used more effectively than it has been to estimate models with heterogeneous expectations and to test the mechanisms used to generate disagreement in these models.     

环保PPP项目异质行动者网络构建研究

现有环保PPP项目多元主体研究缺乏对环境等非人类主体的关注。因此,在分析多元主体异质性基础上,引入行动者网络理论,清晰界定人类行动者和非人类行动者在环保PPP项目中的角色与地位,通过异质行动者转译,构建环保PPP项目异质行动者网络,清除异质行动者的行动障碍,实现异质行动者间的资源互补,提高环保PPP项目供给效率,为多元主体异质合作供给环保PPP项目研究提供新思路。     

The effect of heterogeneous beliefs on mergers and acquisitions

This article investigates the effect of heterogeneous beliefs on firms’ mergers and acquisitions (M&A) decisions. Using data of China’s financial market, which is featured with great heterogeneity of belief, we find that heterogeneous beliefs are positively associated with the occurrence of M&A transactions, and firms with greater heterogeneous beliefs are more likely to pay the transactions with stock. Moreover, we show that government intervention, measured by state ownership, weakens the effect of heterogeneous beliefs on firms’ M&A decisions.     

Foreign Firms,Domestic Wages*

Three types of theories have been used to explain the wage premium in foreign firms: the theories of heterogeneous workers, heterogeneous learning, and heterogeneous firms. We set up a model that explicitly encompasses two of these theories, and that can illustrate the third. This unifying framework allows us to rigorously compare the predictions of the different theories. Thus, it is a useful tool for interpreting new and existing empirical evidence. We illustrate the usefulness of the model on matched employer?employee data, and we find considerable support for all three theories. In particular, the theory of heterogeneous workers can explain up to 75 percent of the premium.     

Invasive species management in a spatially heterogeneous world: Effects of uniform policies

The spread of invasive species (IS) is an inherently spatial process, and management of invasive species occurs over spatially heterogeneous regions, but policy constraints can restrict management responses to be homogeneous across regions. Using a spatial bioeconomic model that includes a representation of invasive species ecology based on heterogeneous environments that are linked across space and time by human and ecological pathways, we compare optimal spatially heterogeneous policy to spatially uniform policy. We explore the magnitude and pattern of the policy differences with emphasis on the influence of different types of underlying heterogeneity across locations.     

Individual and Collective Choice and Voting in Common Pool Resource Problem with Heterogeneous Actors

In this paper we investigate the effects of heterogeneity in common pool resource (CPR) problems. We examine whether heterogeneity impedes or facilitates coordination on an efficient use of a CPR by proposing and voting on allocation schemes. In a full information design we compare extractions and voting behavior in heterogeneous and homogeneous groups. If the CPR is extracted individually, we find no difference in efficiency between heterogeneous and homogeneous groups. However, when groups can vote on allocation schemes, homogeneous groups are more likely to reach an efficient agreement than heterogeneous groups.     

Fixed export cost heterogeneity, trade and welfare

Recent literature on the workhorse model of intra-industry trade has explored heterogeneous cost structures at the firm level. These approaches have proven to add realism and predictive power. This paper presents a new and simple heterogeneous-firms specification. We develop a symmetric two-country intra-industry trade model where firms are of two different marginal cost types and where fixed export costs are heterogeneous across firms. This model traces many of the stylized facts of international trade. However, we find that with heterogeneous fixed export costs there exists a positive bilateral tariff that maximizes national and world welfare.     

Individual Stock Returns and Monetary Policy: Evidence from Japanese Data

The present paper uses Japanese firm‐level data to investigate the effects of monetary policy on stock. The main purpose of this paper is to examine whether monetary policy has heterogeneous effects on stock returns and whether such heterogeneity can be explained by existing theories of monetary transmission mechanisms. We find little evidence that the demand sides of the interest rate and balance sheet channels explain the heterogeneous effects of monetary policy. However, there is evidence that the supply sides of the interest rate and balance sheet channels, when measured by capital intensity, financial leverage and interest payment burden, can explain its heterogeneous effects.     

Heterogeneous anchoring and the shift effect in iterative valuation questions

In this article, we consider starting point bias as a heterogeneous phenomenon, that is, respondents in contingent valuation surveys do not anchor in the same way. We study the consequences of a mistaken assumption of homogeneous anchoring for the analysis of the shift effect in multiple-bounded dichotomous choice format, when respondents really have heterogeneous anchoring. We show that the shift effect, generally interpreted as incentive incompatibility or “yea”-saying, can be the spurious outcome of disregarded heterogeneous anchoring.     

Retailers and consumers in sequential auctions of collectibles

Abstract.  We analyse an independent private-value model, where heterogeneous bidders compete for objects sold in sequential second-price auctions. In this heterogeneous game, bidders may have differently distributed valuations, and some have multi-unit demand with decreasing marginal values (retailers); others have a specific single-unit demand (consumers). By examining equilibrium bidding strategies and price sequences, we show that the presence of consumers leads to more aggressive bidding from the retailers on average and heterogeneous bidders is a plausible explanation of the price decline effect. The study of the expected revenue of the seller confirms the interest of auctioneers in inviting different types of bidders.     

Heterogeneous Preferences, Education Expenditures and Income Distribution

This paper introduces heterogeneous preferences to a growth model which incorporates human capital, accumulated through either public or private education. The implications of heterogeneous preferences for income and its distribution are the focus of the paper. Public education expenditure is determined through a voting mechanism where the median preference rather than median income household is the decisive voter. The paper extends the work of Glomm and Ravikumar (1992) and shows first, that heterogeneous preferences increase income inequality in the private education model and second, public education can overcome the added heterogeneity and reduce income inequality. The results strengthen the arguments for public education as a redistributive mechanism.     

Spatially Uniform <Emphasis Type="Italic">versus</Emphasis> Spatially Heterogeneous Compensation Payments for Biodiversity-Enhancing Land-Use Measures

The importance of compensation payments for biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures has grown over the past decade, particularly in connection with agri-environmental policy. Given that both the costs and the benefits of biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures are subject to spatial variation, the criterion of cost-effectiveness calls for spatially heterogeneous compensation payments. However, when deciding whether to implement uniform or heterogeneous compensation payments, the regulator has to compare the disadvantage of uniform payments in terms of cost-effectiveness with the disadvantages of spatially heterogeneous payments. To help resolve this issue, this paper provides a simple ecological-economic model that allows the reduced cost-effectiveness associated with uniform payments for biodiversity-enhancing land-use measures to be assessed for different types of benefit and cost functions.JEL classification: Q20     

Technical Progress,Urban Unemployment and Heterogeneous Firms

We construct a general equilibrium model of urban unemployment with a continuum of heterogeneous urban firms producing differentiated products in a monopolistic competitive market. We introduce a notion of pattern of technical progress among the heterogeneous urban firms and show that this pattern plays a crucial role in determining the effects of urban technical progress in a developing economy. In particular, we show that the possibility of immiserizing technical progress depends on the pattern of progress among the heterogeneous urban firms.     

Heterogeneous beliefs and learning in forward looking economic models*

We study a class of forward looking economic models with heterogeneous agents in a bounded rationality setting. The agents employ the same recursive learning rule to update beliefs but are characterized by different memory parameters. The peculiarity of the learning mechanism is that the learning rate is not vanishing in the limit. Differently from what is obtained in the case of a vanishing learning step, i.e., the stability conditions in the heterogeneous agents case are those of the representative agent model, we show that heterogeneity matters for the expectational stability of a stationary perfect foresight equilibrium and that the stability parameter restrictions with heterogeneous agents are stronger than in the case of homogeneous agents.     

特征价格模型的发展应用研究

特征价格模型因为其完美的理论思想而成为国际上普遍使用的分析异质品价格和特征关系的主要方法.本文通过对国外核心期刊上一百五十二篇特征价格法相关文献的检阅,梳理了国内外特征价格模型及指数编制的研究现状,对特征价格模型的功能进行了总结性定位,认为特征价格模型的功能主要在于:异质品价格指数的编制,异质品价格预测、价值评估或产品定价,异质品价格影响因素分析,非市场因素的经济效应的检验及对传统经济学模型的改进五方面.文章最后以住宅为例,归纳总结了特征价格法在研究应用中存在的主要问题:一是市场细分;二是特征变量选择和量化;三是模型形式选择;四是模型估计方法的研究;五是指数编制中的问题.这些研究对象为未来特征价格的研究提供了可行参考.     

异质预期及其经济影响——基于货币经济学的新视角

异质预期是指不同的主体因信息不完全、不对称,或由于认知局限,或使用的预测模型不同等而形成不同的预期,它是一个与理性预期相对的新经济学范畴。除了信息、初始认知外,学习是影响异质预期形成的一个重要因素。在存在异质预期的环境中,经济结果取决于所有参与者的预期。与理性预期相比,异质预期是一种更复杂的传递机制,它会加强和放大经济内在的传导机制,孳生经济波动,增加通货膨胀持久性。预期异质性提高了货币政策的作用,我们应充分发挥货币政策的稳定功能。     

Business cycle amplification with heterogeneous expectations

This paper studies the implications for business cycle dynamics of heterogeneous expectations in a stochastic growth model. The assumption of homogeneous, rational expectations is replaced with a heterogeneous expectations model where a fraction of agents hold rational expectations and the remaining fraction adopt parsimonious forecasting models that are, in equilibrium, optimal within a restricted class. Our approach nests the literature on rational expectations in business cycle models with a recent approach based on adaptive learning. We demonstrate that (i.) heterogeneous expectations can lead to substantial improvement in the internal propagation of equilibrium business cycle models and (ii.) the internal propagation depends on the degree of heterogeneity. A calibrated model with heterogeneity provides a closer fit to business cycle data than its representative agent, rational expectations counterpart.     

Testing Temporal Reliability and Carry-over Effect: The Role of Correlated Responses in Test-retest Reliability Studies

Test-retest studies help establish the reliability of contingent valuation (CV) responses but must confront the problem that the initial response may influence subsequent responses, and thus weaken conclusions. We develop a model that tests the influence of heterogeneous preferences and previous responses. By estimating a model of sportfishing, we show that correlation between answers to a CV question is induced by heterogeneous preferences.     

Codes of Best Practice in competitive markets for managers

We study the corporate governance of firms in environments where possibly heterogeneous shareholders compete for possibly heterogeneous managers. A firm, formed by a shareholder and a manager, can sign either an incentive contract or a contract including a Code of Best Practice. A Code allows for better management control, but makes it hard for managers to react quickly when market conditions change. Codes tend to be adopted in markets with low volatility and in environments where managers obtain low levels of benefits. The firms with the best projects tend to adopt a Code when managers are not too heterogeneous, while the best managers tend to be hired through incentive contracts when the projects are similar. Although the matching between shareholders and managers is often positively assortative, shareholders with the best projects might be willing to renounce hiring the best managers; instead, signing contracts including Codes with lower-ability managers.     

Heterogeneous expectations,indeterminacy, and postwar US business cycles

This paper estimates a New Keynesian model extended to include heterogeneous expectations: consumers and firms form either rational or boundedly-rational expectations. The inclusion of heterogeneous expectations alters the determinacy properties of the model, with the details of expectations potentially becoming more influential than the Taylor principle for equilibrium stability.The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques, using rolling windows and allowing the parameters to fall both in the determinacy and indeterminacy regions. The estimates reveal large shares of agents who depart from rational expectations. Heterogeneous expectations are decisively preferred by the data everywhere in the sample.Finally, the paper revisits the narrative that sees postwar US macroeconomic data as consistent with indeterminacy in the pre-1979 sample, with a switch to determinacy starting in the early 1980s, and it shows that it is overall robust to inclusion of heterogeneous expectations.