Ironing without control

I extend Myerson?s [R. Myerson, Optimal auction design, Math. Oper. Res. 6 (1981) 58–73] ironing technique to more general objective functions. The approach is based on a generalized notion of virtual surplus which can be maximized pointwise even when the monotonicity constraint implied by incentive compatibility binds. It is applicable to quasilinear principal-agent models where the standard virtual surplus is weakly concave in the allocation or appropriately separable in the allocation and type. No assumptions on allocation rules are required beyond monotonicity.     

Multicriteria Portfolio Modeling for the Development of Shared Action Agendas

Organizations and collaborative networks set strategic directions by building agendas of action topics that will be implemented subject to limited resources and other constraints. The development of such agendas typically involves several decision makers and possibly other stakeholders who may have divergent views about how the topics contribute to multiple objectives. The processes of developing these agendas can be supported by methods of multicriteria decision analysis which allow the group members’ preferences to be systematically and transparently synthesized. In this paper, we extend methods of portfolio decision analysis with the aim of guiding the development of agendas in the presence of possibly incomplete information about the group members’ preferences and the impacts of the proposed topics. Specifically, we define performance measures that convey (i) what topics are favored by individual group members and (ii) how acceptable alternative portfolios of topic agendas are to the whole group. The methods are illustrated with data from a real case study for the development of a national research agenda on wood products in Finland.     

Experimentation in Markets

We present a model of entry and exit with Bayesian learning and price competition. A new product of initially unknown quality is introduced in the market, and purchases of the product yield information on its true quality. We assume that the performance of the new product is publicly observable. As agents learn from the experiments of others, informational externalities arise.
We determine the Markov Perfect Equilibrium prices and allocations. In a single market, the combination of the informational externalities among the buyers and the strategic pricing by the sellers results in excessive experimentation. If the new product is launched in many distinct markets, the path of sales converges to the efficient path in the limit as the number of markets grows.     

Determinants of racial differentials in allowance rates for social security disability benefits

Conclusion The results of these models suggest that there may be discrimination in the award process.We find that the award rate for black applicants is relatively lower than that of white applicants with similar characteristics. A significant race and sex effect remains in the variation of the award rate after all eligibility-related factors and other factors have been controlled for.The second model is more interesting, in that the race and sex effects are significant even after looking only at eligible applicants.However, we do not know how much of these effects are caused by our imputation of the eligibility criterion from the survey data instead of the explicit criterion from the program data.     

Technology product evolution and the diffusion of new product features

The evolution of technology products can be analysed on multiple levels. Product categories go through continuous evolution determined by the cumulative changes in the features of new product models. This is manifested in the diffusion of new product features and in the increasingly vague boundaries between different product generations. This article develops an approach for planning and forecasting technology product evolution and the diffusion of new product features. This is achieved by isolating the phenomena underlying the evolution process, and formulating the process at the product category, product feature, and product model levels. The approach is derived from these formulations combining the primarily demand-driven product category diffusion and product unit replacement behaviour, and the more supply-driven product feature dissemination. The approach enables meaningful sensitivity analysis including the analysis of discontinuities. The developed approach is applied to characterise the evolution of an example product category of mobile handsets and to forecast the diffusion of mobile handset features using extensive longitudinal and cross-sectional data collected from Finland. In consequence, the process of technology product evolution and the phenomenon of product feature dissemination are suggested as extensions to research on product category diffusion and replacement.     

Cooperative strategies for the availability service of repairable aircraft components

This paper specifies cooperative strategies for the availability service of repairable aircraft components and finds out which factors contribute to the emergence of a particular cooperative strategy. The strategies ad hoc cooperation, cooperative pooling and commercial pooling were specified and compared to the alternative of acting alone, i.e. solo strategy. A simulation model based on fair assumptions of the cost structure was constructed and the cooperative strategies were tested in a game theoretic setting both from the viewpoint of total efficiency and from the perspective of each participant. Despite the explicit focus on aircraft components, the findings should be relevant to any industry using a closed-loop maintenance process with repairable spare parts.     

ADVERSE SELECTION IN DYNAMIC MATCHING MARKETS

We study the Akerlofian adverse selection problem in a dynamic matching model where the competitive situation varies across different meetings. The ‘lemons principle’ is shown to limit the high quality sales within a wider range of quality distributions than in the Walrasian benchmark. High quality goods can nevertheless be traded, albeit less frequently than the low quality goods. For certain quality distributions, there exists a ‘partially pooling’ steady state where high quality sellers are active whenever at least two buyers compete for the good. Otherwise, the model features cycles in a sense that high quality goods are traded only in non‐consecutive periods.     

Bootstrap testing for cointegration of international commodity prices

This paper investigates cointegration with respect to nine commodity groups traded on international markets. Nonparametric bootstrapping is utilized in the testing procedure. Of the 21 pairs of price series, investigated here, for 13 the no-cointegration null hypothesis is rejected in favour for the cointegration of the series. In addition to five out of the remaining eight cases that were not cointegrated, a plausible explanation is the prevailing trade policy. Thus a great majority of the institutionally nonregulated cases turn out to get empirical support for being cointegrated. An important statistical finding is that the augmented Dickey-Fuller test for cointegration (CRADF) generally yields p-values that are close to the p-values obtained by the bootstrap testing. But once they differ substantially, it is usually an indication of irregular periods (e.g. structural changes) in the series. The paper conducts also a Monte Carlo simulation experiment to investigate the power and size properties of the tests. Generally the results indicate that the test procedures have pretty low power in small samples. Bootstrapping improves the testing somewhat by leading consistently to a bit more powerful inference.     

Forecasting GDP growth with financial market data in Finland: Revisiting stylized facts in a small open economy during the financial crisis

This paper examines the ability of financial variables to predict future economic growth above and beyond past economic activity in a small open economy in the euro area. We aim to clarify potential differences in forecasting economic activity during different economic circumstances.Our results from Finland suggest that the proper choice of forecasting variables is related to general economic conditions. During steady economic growth, the preferred choice for a financial indicator is the short-term interest rate combined with past values of output growth. However, during economic turbulence, the traditional term spread and stock returns are more important in forecasting GDP growth. The time-varying predictive content of the financial variables may be utilized by applying regime-switching nonlinear forecasting models. We propose a novel application using the negative term spread and observed recession as signals to switch between regimes. This procedure yields a significant improvement in forecasting performance at the one-year forecast horizon.     

Economic policy uncertainty effects for forecasting future real economic activity

Recently introduced measures for economic policy uncertainty (EPU), included in the data from 1997 to 2016, have a role in forecasting out-of-sample values for future real economic activity for both the euro area and UK economies. The inclusion of EPU measures, either for the US, the UK or for overall European economies, improves the forecasting ability of models based on standard financial market information, especially for the period before the 2008 global crisis. However, during and after the crisis period, the slope of the yield curve and excess stock market returns improves the out-of-sample forecast performance the most compared to an AR-benchmark model. Hence, the EPU information is important in times of normal business cycles, but might contain similar information components to financial market return variables during turbulent crisis periods in the financial markets and in the real economy.