On the precautionary demand for assets

Precautionary demand models are developed for n assets under assumptions of both fixed and variable transactions costs. Applications of the models are made to all short-run cash needs portfolios as well as to the traditional banking case. Implications of the models are shown for interest rate structure and central bank reserve and secondary reserve controls. Emphasis is put on unsolved problems with the models such as integration with capital asset pricing models and problems with intraperiod timing with the hope of spurring additional research in this rather neglected area.     

Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?

We analyze 1,607 investors who switched from phone-based toonline trading during the 1990s. Those who switch to onlinetrading perform well prior to going online, beating the marketby more than 2% annually. After going online, they trade moreactively, more speculatively, and less profitably than before—laggingthe market by more than 3% annually. Reductions in market frictions(lower trading costs, improved execution speed, and greaterease of access) do not explain these findings. Overconfidence—augmentedby self-attribution bias and the illusions of knowledge andcontrol—can explain the increase in trading and reductionin performance of online investors.     

Video games and the political and cultural economies of health-entertainment

Focusing mainly on the company Nintendo, this paper examines the political economic and cultural forces underpinning the video game industry’s recent interest in merging entertainment and health promotion. This is a trend best exemplified in sexagenarian actress Helen Mirren’s endorsement of Nintendo’s fitness-themed game Wii Fit Plus. In one sense, ‘health-entertainment’ is deemed a product of the coercive laws of competition that impress the need for reinvestment and innovation as a way of warding off industry rivals. Nintendo’s turn to health promotion is from this perspective an extension of the ‘console wars’ that in the past drove gaming companies to pursue verisimilitude on screen in hopes of attracting (young male) consumers. In another sense, the present moment offers an ideal time to direct innovation towards the issues of health and healthy ageing in particular, as the cultural logics of healthism and the ‘third age’ both emphasise the virtues of ‘healthy’ and autonomous consumer activity. As such, Nintendo has pursued aesthetic simplicity but kinaesthetic realism as a way of extending the appeal of video gaming beyond the male youth demographic. In examining the implications of these developments, it is argued that health and entertainment, as independent constructs, are conceptually reimagined through their integration with one another. The pursuit of entertainment is made ‘responsible’, thereby remedying the concern that video gaming is an unhealthy activity. The pursuit of health, meanwhile, becomes a matter of playful, technology-enhanced and ultimately consumption-based experience.     

Frequency of Transaction and House Price Modeling

This article examines the characteristics and price behavior of repeatedly transacted properties. Using data from four U.S. counties, we estimate hedonic price models of properties grouped by transaction frequency, and compare estimated standard deviations and estimated appreciation rates by group.For each of four counties studied, we find that estimated house price appreciation is systematically higher among properties that transact more frequently. One possible explanation for this result is that purchasers make property improvements that are not adequately reflected in the available data.We also find that estimated standard deviations of the disturbance term show a marked decrease as the frequency of transaction increases. Since frequently transacting properties are not found to be systematically more homogeneous than seldomly transacting properties, we do not attribute this to any increase in homogeneity for frequently transacting properties, but rather to the length of time elapsed between transactions of properties.The findings of this article suggest that repeat-sales price models may need to be adjusted to account for cross-sectional variation in transaction probabilities---that is, the selectivity of the subsample of properties that transacted (or transacted repeatedly) during any finite study period.     

Macroeconomic announcements, volatility, and interrelationships: An examination of the UK interest rate and equity markets

This study investigates the intraday and daily pricing behavior of UK interest rate and equity index futures contracts. The paper initially examines the response of Short Sterling, Long Gilt, and FTSE100 to the release of scheduled macroeconomic announcements before employing dynamic time series techniques in order to reveal the nature of causal transmission patterns between these variables. In brief, short-term interest rates were found to be highly sensitive to indicators of prevailing economic conditions. However, the release of data important in the formation of inflationary expectations had a relatively subdued impact on long-term rates. Announcement effects appear somewhat ambiguous for the stock market. The analysis also reveals the bid-ask bounce and swift mean reversion in volatility to be important behavioral features of the return-generating process. Whilst the three variables appear to be bound by two cointegrating relationships, the tests for lead/lag relationships produce mixed results.