Industry and time specific deviations from fundamental values in a random coefficient model

The paper analyzes the relationship between stock prices and fundamentals for a large sample of US stocks in the last 10 years using a random coefficient model. Heterogeneity and omitted variable bias are properly taken into account with model coefficients being allowed to vary across time and industries. The random coefficient model allows to track waves of reliance on analysts’ forecasts and nonfundamental stock price components across time and clearly identifies the growth of the nonfundamental component in the long 1991–2000 swing.      

Insurance and opportunities: A welfare analysis of labor market risk

Using a model with constant relative risk-aversion preferences, endogenous labor supply and partial insurance against idiosyncratic wage risk, this paper provides an analytical characterization of three welfare effects: (a) the welfare effect of a rise in wage dispersion, (b) the welfare gain from completing markets, and (c) the welfare effect from eliminating risk. The analysis reveals an important trade-off for these welfare calculations. On the one hand, higher wage uncertainty increases the cost associated with missing insurance markets. On the other hand, greater wage dispersion presents opportunities to raise aggregate productivity by concentrating market work among more productive workers. Welfare effects can be expressed in terms of the underlying parameters defining preferences and wage risk or, alternatively, in terms of changes in observable second moments of the joint distribution over individual wages, consumption and hours.     

Testing market efficiency with the pricing kernel

Market efficiency and the pricing kernel are closely related. A non-monotonic decreasing pricing kernel implies the existence of a trading strategy in contingent claims that stochastically dominates a direct investment in the market. Moreover, a market is assumed to be efficient only if no dominating strategies exist. Empirically, many studies of the pricing kernel find non-monotonicity, apparently ruling out market efficiency. However, these results are often unreliable, because the pricing measures of the pricing kernel are estimated using differing filtration sets. We show this effect both theoretically and empirically, and we discuss recent approaches in the literature for achieving more reliable estimates of the pricing kernel, potentially leading to better tests of market efficiency.     

Wage-setting patterns and monetary policy: International evidence

Systematic differences in the timing of wage-setting decisions among industrialized countries provide an ideal framework to study the importance of wage rigidity for the transmission of monetary policy. Synchronization in wage-setting decisions is prevalent in Japan and the United States, yielding varying degrees of wage rigidity within the year; instead, in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom decisions are more uniformly spread over time. Exploiting within-year variation in the timing of wage-setting decisions in these economies, we find support for the long-held but scarcely tested view that wage rigidity plays a critical role in the transmission of monetary policy.     

Constructing performance measurement in the public sector

This article investigates the process of translating Performance Measurement Systems (PMSs) into operational use, in the context of public sector reforms. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, the article examines the Good Practice project, an 11-year PMS implementation in Italian universities. Analysing this experience, the article shows how controversies play a central role in the process of translation, as essential risks for revitalising the PMS. Furthermore, it underscores the heterogeneity of actors’ stratagems, giving voice to louder as well as weaker participants, who all proved crucial to the vitality of the PMS, by raising unexploited and unresolved issues within the network.     

Contracts with Wishful Thinkers

In a setting with a wishful thinking agent and a realistic principal, the paper studies how incentive contracts should be designed to control for both moral hazard and self‐deception. The properties of the contract that reconcile the agent with reality depend on the weight the agent attaches to anticipatory utility. When this is small, principal and agent agree on full recollection. For intermediate values the principal bears an extra cost to make the agent recall bad news. For large weights, the principal gives up on inducing signal recollection. We also extend the analysis to the case in which the parameter of anticipatory utility is private information.     

End-of-life care in United States: current reality and future promise--a policy review

Data collection and analysis of that data are vital to developing effective outcome measures when it comes to improvements in the cost and quality of delivered health care. The present state of end-of-life care in the United States is evaluated, focusing on statistics of disparities in access to and type of care provided across the country. Although only a few portions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act deal with end-of-life care reform, the multiple innovative efforts occurring at state and local levels are proving very effective in improving end-of-life care. Possible improvements and obstacles to those improvements, and the involvement of the profession of nursing are highlighted. The focus of this investigation is to determine if the evidence supports the following imperative: that the money spent for end-of-life care be spent in a manner that benefits the patient and complements his or her wishes.     

The asymptotic distribution of Nagar's bias-adjusted TSLS estimator under partial identification

The asymptotic distribution of the Nagar bias-adjusted two-stage-least-squares estimator is studied under the assumption of partial identification when the number of instruments increases at the same rate as the sample size and the errors are normally distributed.     

Network of Collaborations for Innovation: The Case of Biotechnology

The ‘life science’ revolution related to the development of biotechnology affects many different markets. In the pharmaceutical business new drugs are continuously developed, tested, and submitted to governmental institutions for the required approval. In the agricultural business the so-called ‘green revolution’ is well under way with many new products designed in order to appeal to farmers or to consumers. The increasing pace of introduction of new biotech products—particularly drugs and agrochemical (Ag) foods—leads firms to look for collaborations in the different phases of the introduction process. Basing on an empirical study conducted on a sample of 27 organisations involved in the process of introduction of biotech products, the paper aims at comparing and contrasting the nature and the processes involved in inter-institutional collaborations occurring at various stages of new product development and commercialisation of new biotech products (particularly drugs and Ag foods).     

Search Channel Use and Firms' Recruitment Behaviour

In the present paper we examine the impact of firms' attitudes towards key aspects of the recruitment process on the number of search channels activated. Furthermore, we address the issue of the timing of the activation of additional search channels. It is found that firms that attach importance to search effort and to applicants' motivation generally use more search channels than firms that do not attach any importance to the aforementioned aspects of recruitment. Furthermore, it appears that employers generally use fewer search channels for permanent positions. However, firms with a personnel department which are hiring for a vacancy requiring specific work experience usually activate multiple search channels. Finally, the choice of advertising as the first search channel appears to negatively affect the chances of considering additional channels.