Does social learning promote cooperation in social dilemmas?

In this study, we analyze how emergence of cooperation is related to social learning. Cooperation is an example of social behavior. It is frequency-dependent that is the success of a particular behavior depends on the number of individuals adopting each behavioral trait. We study how social learning can affect the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas represented by two well-known games: Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) and Snowdrift (SD). We show that, in the PD game, increase in the proportion of social learners leads to the alleviation of the social dilemma. Whereas, in the SD game increasing the proportion of social learners does not always lead to the alleviation of the social dilemma, that is there is no simple monotonic relation between social learning and the weakening of the social dilemma.

     

Can hedging tell the full story? Reconciling differences in United States aggregate- and industry-level exchange rate risk premium

While the importance of currency movements to industry competitiveness is theoretically well established, there is little evidence that currency risk impacts US industries. Applying a conditional asset pricing model to 36 US industries, we find that all industries have a significant currency premium that adds about 2.47 percentage points to the cost of equity and accounts for approximately 11.7% of total risk premium in absolute value. Cross-industry variation in the currency premium is explained by foreign income, industry competitiveness, leverage, liquidity, and other industry characteristics, while its time variation is explained by US aggregate foreign trade, monetary policy, growth opportunities, and other macro variables. The results indicate that methodological weakness, not hedging, explains the insignificant industry currency risk premium found in previous work, thus resolving the puzzle that currency risk premium is important at the aggregate stock market level, but not at the industry level.     

η-Pseudolinearity

The notion of η-pseudolinearity is introduced. First, some characterizations of an η-pseudolinear function are obtained. Then characterizations of the solution set of an η-pseudolinear program are derived. The paper generalizes various results on pseudolinear functions and programs.     

European Bank Performance Beyond Country Borders: What Really Matters?

The paper analyzes bank performance in the context of the integrated EuropeanUnion market and its member countries. First, the paper investigates the technicalefficiency of banks in each country sample using a Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) model incorporating only banking variables. Then, a second DEA modelis defined incorporating environmental factors together with banking variables inorder to standardize the country-specific environmental conditions. Based on thesemodels, the paper systematically analyzes the efficiency position for each of theEuropean banking industry if average banks decide to operate in any other country.The results indicate that adverse (advantageous) environmental conditions are apositive (negative) factor for the home banking industry and being technicallyefficient appears to be a significant deterrence to foreign competition.     

An analysis of the black market exchange rate in a developing economy — The case of Turkey

Zusammenfassung Eine Analyse des Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurses in Entwicklungsl?ndern — Das Beispiel der Türkei. — Die Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurse in Entwicklungsl?ndern sind nicht unabh?ngig davon, welche Politik betrieben wird und wie sich die anderen ?konomischen Variablen (wie Einkommen, Preisniveau und Inflationserwartungen) entwickeln. In diesem Aufsatz wird mit Hilfe türkischer Daten ein einfaches Modell entwickelt und gesch?tzt, das gleichzeitig Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurse, Preisniveau, Realeinkommen und reale Geldmenge bestimmt. Die Ergebnisse dynamischer Simulationen zeigen, daΒ sich dann, wenn Rückwirkungen aus den übrigen Teilen der Wirtschaft zugelassen werden, die Wirkungen wirtschaftspolitischer MaΒnahmen auf die Schwarzmarkt-Wechselkurse erheblich von denen unterscheiden, die man in einem Ein-Gleichungs-Modell beobachten würde, in dem alle erkl?renden Variablen als exogen angesehen werden.

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Résumé Une analyse du taux de change sur le marché noir dans une économie développante. — Les taux de change sur le marché noir dans les pays en voie de développement ne sont pas indépendants des politiques appliquées ou des autres variables économiques comme par exemple le revenu, le niveau des prix ou les expectatives d’inflation. Cet article a construit, estimé et simulé, en utilisant des données de la Turquie, un modèle simple qui simultanément détermine le taux de change sur le marché noir, le niveau des prix, le revenue réel et l’encaisse réelle. Les résultats des simulations dynamiques démontrent que, si l’on permet des rétro-actions du reste de l’économie, les effets d’un changement de politique sur le taux de change sur le marché noir sont substantiellement différents á ceux qu’on observerait avec un modèle á une seule équation dans laquelle toutes les variables explicatives sont supposément exogènes.

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Resumen Un análisis del tipo de cambio negro en una economfa en desarrollo. — Tipos de cambio de mercado negro en pai’ses en desarrollo no son independientes de las polfticas aplicadas o de otras variables econ?micas tales como el ingreso, nivel de precios o expectativas de inflation. En este articulo se ha construido, estimado y simulado, sobre la base de datos de Turquia, un modelo simple que détermina simultáneamente el tipo de cambio de mercado negro, nivel de precios, ingreso real y balances monetarios reaies. Los resultados de simulaciones dinámicas muestran que, cuando se permiten realimentaciones del resto de la economia, los efectos de un cambio de pol?tica dado sobre el tipo de cambio de mercado negro son sustancialmente diferentes de aquéllos que habrian sido observados con un modelo de ecuación única que asume que todas las variables explicativas son exógenas y no permite ninguna realimentación.

     

Determinants of the Loan Loss Allowance: Some Cross‐Country Comparisons

This paper analyzes the determinants of banks' loan loss allowance for samples of U.S. banks and three non‐U.S. samples: a group of 21 countries, Canada, and Japan. The model includes fundamental (or nondiscretionary) determinants of the allowance, such as nonperforming loans, and discretionary determinants, such as income before the loan loss provision. The results suggest that the loan loss allowance is sensitive to preprovision income in almost all samples. However, the results also suggest that some variables thought to reflect fundamental factors in U.S. analysis, such as net charge‐offs, are not significant factors for non‐U.S. banks.     

Saving, Investment, and Capital Mobility in LDCs

The Coakley, Kulasi, and Smith current-account solvency model ( Economic Journal , 1996, pp. 620–7) is used to investigate saving and investment in LDCs. This model implies that saving and investment cointegrate with a unit coefficient irrespective of the degree of capital mobility. Panel and conventional unit-root tests indicate that LDC current accounts are stationary. The Feldstein–Horioka cross-section regression coefficient for LDCs is lower than the corresponding OECD coefficient, indicating different policy responses in these countries rather than higher capital mobility. Finally, adjustment toward solvency is slower in LDCs, reflecting their vulnerability to external shocks and the impact of financial repression.     

Corruption,Bureaucracy and Firm Productivity in Africa

This paper estimates the impact of corruption and poor bureaucratic quality on firm productivity for a unique dataset with firm‐specific data of more than 900 firms over 12 years for Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania. We first discuss why poor bureaucratic quality and, especially, corruption are expected to have negative impacts on firm productivity. We then employ Data Envelopment Analysis to estimate firm productivity and pooled OLS and Tobit regression analysis to estimate the effects of corruption and bureaucratic quality on firm productivity. We find that less productive firms are more likely to engage in corrupt activities; both poor bureaucratic quality and corruption reduce firm productivity; and corruption has a greater negative impact on productivity.     

Bank efficiency in South‐Eastern Europe

This study examines the cost and profit efficiency of banking sectors in six transition countries of South‐Eastern Europe over the period 1998–2008. Using a stochastic frontier approach, our analysis reveals that the average cost efficiency of South‐Eastern European banks is 68.59 percent, and the average profit efficiency is 53.87 percent. Regressions on the determinants of bank efficiency show that foreign banks are characterized by higher profit efficiency but lower cost efficiency, and government‐owned banks are associated with lower profit efficiency than domestic private banks. However, the efficiency gap between foreign‐, domestic private‐ and government‐owned banks narrows over time. We also find that the market power of a bank has a positive association with both cost and profit efficiency. Institutional development, proxied by progress in banking regulatory reforms, privatization and enterprise corporate governance restructuring, also has a positive impact on bank efficiency.