EMERGENCE OF LEADERSHIP IN TEAMS*

This paper provides a simple model to explain the emergence of leadership in an unstructured team. Each agent has partial information about the productivity of the team. Each agent may invest a productive effort in one of two periods. If one agent voluntarily moves first and the other waits for the second period, and if the first‐move action successfully transmits his type, the first mover effectively exercises leadership in affecting the effort choice of the second mover. We prove that, if each agent holds stochastically independent information, leadership emerges with positive probabilities in Cho–Kreps stable outcomes.     

Central Bank Independence,Political Regimes,and the Sacrifice Ratio: A Replication Study of Caporale and Caporale (2008)

A recent article by Caporale and Caporale (2008, this Journal) provides an important finding on the determinants of the sacrifice ratio: central bank independence is not a determining factor for the sacrifice ratio when political regimes and other factors are controlled for. Our replication study shows that their result is driven by errors in the data. With correct data, it can be found that central bank independence is positively and significantly correlated with the sacrifice ratio, even when the nature of the political regime is controlled for.     

Investment Horizon and Repo in the Over‐the‐Counter Market

This paper presents a three‐period model featuring a short‐term investor in the over‐the‐counter bond market. A short‐term investor stores cash because of a need to pay cash at some future date. If a short‐term investor buys bonds, then a deadline for retrieving cash lowers the resale price of bonds for the investor through bilateral bargaining in the bond market. Ex‐ante, this hold‐up problem explains the use of a repo by a short‐term investor, the existence of a haircut, and the vulnerability of a repo market to counterparty risk. This result holds without any uncertainty about bond returns or asymmetric information.     

ENDOGENOUS SELECTION OF PRODUCERS,ASSET PRICES,AND PRODUCTIVITY SLOWDOWN*

This paper presents a simple heterogeneous agent model to show that shocks that reduce aggregate borrowing capacity of producers under borrowing constraints cause endogenous productivity slowdowns through declines in asset prices and biased selections of producers. These dynamics of the model replicate the qualitative features of the Japanese economy during the 1990s, including a decline in the within effect in total factor productivity growth decomposition as well as default on mortgage loans. Policy experiments demonstrate that foreclosure restrictions already in place mitigate an exogenous productivity slowdown, but that a tightening of foreclosure restrictions causes an endogenous productivity slowdown.     

Declining Effects of Oil Price Shocks

In recent years, output responses to oil price shocks have not only been weaker, but have also reached their trough earlier. This paper builds a model that incorporates a realistic structure of U.S. petroleum consumption and explores three possible explanations for the changes. The possible factors considered are (i) deregulation in the transportation industry, (ii) improved energy efficiency, and (iii) a lower degree of persistence of oil price shocks. Under realistic parameter values, the three factors play an important role quantitatively, accounting for half of the reduction in the largest impact on output of an oil price shock over time.     

Intersectoral Labor Immobility,Sectoral Comovement,and News Shocks

Sectoral comovement of output and hours worked is a prominent feature of business cycle data. However, most two‐sector neoclassical models fail to generate this sectoral comovement. We construct and estimate a two‐sector neoclassical Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DGSE) model generating sectoral comovement in response to both anticipated and unanticipated shocks. The key to our model's success is a significant degree of intersectoral labor immobility, which we estimate using data on sectoral hours worked. Furthermore, we demonstrate that imperfect intersectoral labor mobility provides a better explanation for the sectoral comovement than an alternative model emphasizing the role of labor‐supply wealth effects.     

Why Do the Rich Save More? A Theory and Australian Evidence*

We provide a theory to explain the existence of inequality in an economy where agents have identical preferences and have access to the same production technology. Agents consume a ‘health’ good which determines their subjective discount factor. Depending on initial distribution of capital the economy gets separated into different permanent‐income groups. This leads to a testable hypothesis: ‘The rich save a larger proportion of their permanent‐income’. We test this implication for savings behaviour in Australia. We find that even after controlling for lifecycle and health characteristics, higher permanent income is positively related with higher savings rates and better saving habits.