Contagion or Inductance? Crisis 1997 Reconsidered

We provide the simple example of a refinancing game with incomplete information, where the lack of transparency is both necessary and sufficient for the propagation of local financial distress across disjoint financial networks. JEL Classification Number: F4.
And the truth shall make you free. John 8: 32     

Fragmentation, Engel's Law, and Learning

This paper outlines the conditions under which trade is beneficial for a developing country's growth. A developing country suffers from two disadvantages: low income and a comparative disadvantage in the production of modern manufactured goods—goods which allow a high rate of human capital accumulation through learning by doing. Low income together with Engel's law imply that developing countries consume and produce very few modern goods in autarky and hence grow slowly. With international fragmentation of production, a developing country may find comparative advantage in the production of some stages of modern goods despite an absence of comparative advantage in the production of modern goods under “100% local content.” More resources can then be allocated to the modern goods sector leading to greater learning externalities and hence growth under free trade than in autarky.     

Initial Margin Requirements, Volatility, and the Individual Investor: Insights from Japan

Initial margin requirements represent: (1) a cost impediment to the wealth constrained investor and (2) a potential way of mitigating excessive volatility. However, prior empirical research finds that margins are not an effective tool in reducing volatility. We consider the possibility that margins primarily affect certain stocks and investors. Specifically, we test whether margins affect individuals who, as a group, we believe to be the investors most affected when margin requirements change. Our initial empirical tests, however, do not support this contention.     

Inflation, investment and economic performance: The role of internal financing

This paper studies a link between inflation and economic activity that is built on two hypotheses. First, firms mitigate informational frictions in financial markets by accumulating retained earnings over a period of time. Second, firms allocate earnings among three competing uses - dividends, current investment, and the accumulation of internal funds - and inflation directly distorts this allocation decision as well as the real value of accumulated internal funds. The model predicts that the level of inflation - both unanticipated and expected inflation - as well as the variability of inflation distort firms’ internal financing decisions, increases frictions in financial markets, reduces the level and efficiency of investment, and reduces aggregate output. The marginal effects of inflation are increasing in the inflation rate.     

Regulating an Externality-Generating Utility Environmental Taxes Under Limited Information

Global warming is currently an important item on most nationalenvironmental agendas. In many countries, coal-fired electricity generatingstations represent an important source of greenhouse gases. We examinehow regulations to curb emissions affect public utility pricing regulationwhen regulators act non-cooperatively. We show that, when there is limitedinformation on fixed abatement costs, an environmental regulator prefersan emission tax over an output tax or a lump sum environmental tax. Thepublic utility regulator prefers the lump sum tax regime.     

International capital and nontraded goods in the long run

The present paper develops the comparative static properties of a small open economy which produces both traded goods and nontraded goods, and is a price taker in the international market for productive capital. Assumptions of full employment, competitive markets, and international mobility of productive cap ital input capture a long run horizon. Comparative static results associated with the wage, labor, and the price of the nontraded good are independent of factor intensity, factor substitution, and demand for the nontraded good. A tax on the traded good and a capital subsidy together raise national income and the real wage.     

Regulating an externality-generating public utility: A multi-dimensional screening approach

In this paper, I present a monopoly screening model in which a firm holds private information on fixed abatement costs. Because of the nature of the optimal contracts, bunching is never optimal even with ‘n’ distinct types. A characterization of full and limited information solutions is offered and it is shown that the design standards alone determine the value of an information rent. The variable charge is completely free of any marginal information costs. This allows the variable charge to track marginal damages and thereby ensures that marginal social costs are covered. A fixed charge implements the optimal solution.