Are There Rational Speculative Bubbles in REITs?

This study tests for the presence of rational speculative bubbles in the Equity REIT industry. We analyze REIT prices using a vector of macroeconomic fundamentals. Using the unit root test and cointegration procedures, we find no evidence of rational bubbles in the REIT market. Tests for duration dependence in the returns series show no evidence of negative duration dependence, suggesting that REIT markets are not affected by rational bubbles. Applying the same tests, we find no evidence of rational speculative bubbles in the Russell 2000 index, a proxy for small-cap stocks.     

Economic factors affecting the increase in obesity in the United States: Differential response to price

A sharp increase in obesity during the last 15 years in the United States became one of the nation’s main public health problems. The theory of rational addiction seems to explain human behavior in food consumption leading to obesity reasonably well. The interesting thing about our results is that the tax policy, normally used to correct various distortions, is to serve in this case as the preventive policy: additional taxes on future prices of the addictive (sweet) foods contribute to lower sugar consumption and BMI at present time. On the other hand, increasing education level is usually considered a preventive type of policy. In this case, it leads to lowering the levels of the BMI in already overweight and obese population.     

Invertible and non-invertible information sets in linear rational expectations models

Rational expectations solutions are usually derived by assuming that all state variables relevant to forward-looking behaviour are directly observable, or that they are “…an invertible function of observables” (Mehra and Prescott, 1980). Using a framework that nests linearised DSGE models, we give a number of results useful for the analysis of linear rational expectations models with restricted information sets. We distinguish between instantaneous and asymptotic invertibility, and show that the latter may require significantly less information than the former. We also show that non-invertibility of the information set can have significant implications for the time series properties of economies.     

Rational Choice with Passion: Virtue in a Model of Rational Addiction

By incorporating a divided self into the rational addiction framework, this paper provides a rationale for and an explicit analysis of two types of budget-shrinking behaviors - actions taken to limit access to lifetime wealth in a given period, and actions taken to change the effective price of the addictive good. Moreover, internal conflict models provide a normative rationale, absent from rational addiction models, for policies that limit access to addictive goods.     

资本的市场价值理论在投资行为中的运用

本文试图运用资本的市场价值理论来研究厂商的投资行为。通过分析认为,经济增长决定行业产品的需求量,行业资本的利润主要依赖于需求量的增加。利率和行业资本的利润决定资本的市场价值,资本的市场价值决定厂商的资本供给,也就是厂商的投资数量。对经济增长和行业产品需求量的过度预期,会导致非理性的投资,产生沉淀成本和调整成本。预期利率升高,使投资前移,同样会产生投资规模过大的趋势。提高投资项目资本金的比例,能遏制投资规模过大。作为微观经济个体的厂商,在作投资决策时,应将选择价值纳入考虑范围,进行理性投资,减少沉淀成本和调整成本。     

Asymmetric information in a competitive market game: Reexamining the implications of rational expectations

Summary. We examine price formation in a simple static model with asymmetric information, an infinite number of risk neutral traders and no noise traders. Here we re-examine four results associated with rational expectations models relating to the existence of fully revealing equilibrium prices, the advantage of becoming informed, the costly acquisition of information, and the impossibility of having equilibrium prices with higher volatility than the underlying fundamentals. Received: August 27, 1997; revised version: February 11, 1998     

Learning in linear models with expectational leads

Models with expectational leads typically admit multiple rational expectations solutions. Based on the ordinary least-squares algorithm, this paper provides an adaptive learning scheme which allows a forecasting agent to select a particular solution on economic grounds. Conditions are given under which this scheme converges to rational expectations solutions globally for all initial conditions. We strengthen convergence results in relaxing standard assumptions and in providing conditions ensuring algorithm convergence which are easier to verify and to interpret than those previously known.     

投资者面临泡沫的理性行为:抛售、旁观还是骑乘?

关于投资者面临泡沫时的行为,学术界存在截然不同的三种观点:抛售、旁观和骑乘。本文构建了一个仅需基本信息的、适用于一般投资者的泡沫识别模型,以1996年5月至2010年12月的数据为样本识别泡沫,在此基础上分析泡沫期之后的崩溃风险,并测算投资于泡沫期之后的超额收益,探寻当期识别到泡沫与下一期标准化的超额收益之间的关系。结果表明,崩溃与泡沫没有必然联系,投资者面临具有极端收益的泡沫时的理性行为是骑乘泡沫。     

人力资本理性配置的制度因素分析

本文通过建立人力资本理性配置与经济增长间的关系模型,得出结论:低人力资本者和高人力资本者都可能成为价值侵蚀者.只有个体将知识和人力次本更多地配置到价值创造的生产性领域时,才能在降低增长成本而实现个人财富"理性增长"基础上实现整个社会经济的"和谐增长".本文的政策含义是:粗放型经济增长的根源在于"掠夺性激励制度"激发了人的"掠夺性侵蚀行为",如何纠正激励性制度偏差,降低价值侵蚀行为效率是实现成本节约基础上长期经济增长的关键.     

Solving RE models with discontinuous policy rules – an application to minimum wage setting in Germany

The legal regulations require the minimum wage in Germany to be adjusted biennially which gives rise to a policy discontinuity. From the perspective of rational expectations models, such policy features render standard local approximation techniques infeasible. The article presents a stylized model in which negotiated wages and corporate profits are the outcome of an optimization problem, while changes to the minimum wage are modelled by a discontinuous policy rule. Using the simple example of minimum wage setting in Germany, the article illustrates how such models can be solved using the method of undetermined coefficients and presents selected simulation results.