Investigating Treatment Effects of Participating Jointly in SNAP and WIC when the Treatment Is Validated Only for SNAP

The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates several food assistance programs aimed at alleviating food insecurity. We study whether participation in both participation in both SNAP and WIC alleviates food insecurity compared with participation in SNAP alone. We bound underlying causal effects by applying nonparametric treatment effect methods that allow for endogenous selection and underreported program participation when validation data are available for one program (treatment) but not the other. We estimate average treatment effects using data from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). FoodAPS includes administrative data to validate SNAP participation. Information on local food prices allows us to construct a food expenditure‐based monotone instrumental variable that does not require a typical instrumental variable exclusion restriction. Under relatively weak monotonicity assumptions, we identify that the impact of participating in both programs relative to SNAP alone is strictly positive, suggesting that the programs are nonredundant. This evidence can support improved design and targeting of food programs.     

Social media bots and stock markets

This study examines the link between information spread by social media bots and stock trading. Based on a large sample of tweets mentioning 55 companies in the FTSE 100 composites, we find significant relations between bot tweets and stock returns, volatility, and trading volume at both daily and intraday levels. These results are also confirmed by an event study of stock response following abnormal increases in the volume of tweets. The findings are robust to various specifications, including controlling for traditional news channel, alternative measures of volatility, information flows in pretrading hours, and different measures of sentiment.     

Small business survival and inheritance: evidence from Germany

This paper investigates whether small businesses face financial constraints that affect their survival. A model of moral hazard is developed in which financial constraints arise endogenously. The model predicts that higher private assets relax financial constraints and have a positive effect on the firm’s probability of survival. The empirical analysis confirms that the entrepreneur has a higher propensity to stay in business when she inherits capital. This effect is particularly strong for entrepreneurs who switch from self-employment into wage employment.

Semiparametric Model of Hedonic Housing Prices in Japan

We propose a semiparametric hedonic model of housing prices with nonlinearity in age and cohort effects. The model avoids the simultaneity problem among age, cohort and year effects, which is a common problem in linear hedonic models. Applying the model to housing prices in Tokyo between 1990 and 2008 revealed significant nonlinearities in both the age and cohort effects, and significant interactions between these effects, with the shape of the age effect differing across housing cohorts. Estimates of the year effect indicated a declining trend in prices that was more pronounced compared with those of conventional linear hedonic models.     

An examination of EU trade disintegration scenarios

This paper demonstrates the welfare implications of the differential disintegration of the EU. Using a structural gravity approach, our estimates suggest that the rest of the EU countries have much more to lose from the disintegration of the EU compared to a disorderly Brexit. At the same time, neighbouring high‐income and middle‐income countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Norway, are expected to benefit from EU disintegration under some scenarios because trade would be diverted from EU countries.     

Performance effects of appointing other firms’ executive directors to corporate boards: an analysis of UK firms

This paper studies the effect on company performance of appointing non-executive directors that are also executive directors in other firms. The analysis is based on a new panel dataset of UK companies over 2002–2008. Our findings suggest a positive relation between the presence of these non-executive directors and the accounting performance of the appointing companies. The effect is stronger if these directors are executive directors in firms that are performing well. We also find a positive effect when these non-executive directors are members of the audit committee. Overall, our results are broadly consistent with the view that non-executive directors that are executives in other firms contribute to both the monitoring and advisory functions of corporate boards.     

The Effects of Future Capital Investment and R&D Expenditures on Firms' Liquidity

The paper explores factors that lead to accumulation or decumulation of firms' cash reserves. In particular, the paper empirically examines whether additional future fixed capital and R&D investment expenditures induce firms to change their liquidity ratio while considering the role of market imperfections. Implementing a dynamic framework on a panel of US, UK, and German firms, it is found that firms in all three countries make larger adjustments to cash holdings when they plan additional future R&D rather than fixed capital investment expenditures. This behavior is particularly prevalent among financially constrained firms.     

A fast Fourier transform technique for pricing American options under stochastic volatility

This paper develops a non-finite-difference-based method of American option pricing under stochastic volatility by extending the Geske-Johnson compound option scheme. The characteristic function of the underlying state vector is inverted to obtain the vector’s density using a kernel-smoothed fast Fourier transform technique. The method produces option values that are closely in line with the values obtained by finite-difference schemes. It also performs well in an empirical application with traded S&P 100 index options. The method is especially well suited to price a set of options with different strikes on the same underlying asset, which is a task often encountered by practitioners.     

Do Ukrainian Firms Benefit from FDI?

All countries are eager to attract as much foreign direct investments (FDI) as possible. At the same time FDI may have not only positive, but also negative economic effects for receiving countries. Positive effects are associated with technology transfer, efficient allocation of resources, and training of domestic workers. However, the entry of foreign firms could, e.g., lead to a decrease of labor productivity at domestic firms, which is a negative effect. The main purpose of this paper is to estimate direct and indirect effects of FDI. First, we test for direct influence of foreign direct investments on firms performance, where the latter is estimated alternatively as labor productivity and as exports. FDI notably increases both labor productivity and export volumes. Second, we look for spillover or indirect effects. There is statistical evidence that the levels of FDI in certain regional industries are associated with higher performance indicators of firms not receiving FDI in those same regional industries.JEL Classification: L1, L6, F2     

Regional‐Level Analysis of Oligopsony Power in the Ukrainian Dairy Industry

Transition was characterized by massive structural changes in most economic sectors in Ukraine. This is especially true for the dairy sector. Several countervailing developments took place under transition that affected the dairy industry. Interregional trade became feasible, the importance of milk delivered by households increased significantly, and most dairies became investor‐owned companies. The latter point and the fact that the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine detected several price cartels in the industry lead us to offer that after transition, dairies were able to exercise oligopsony power toward dairy producers at the regional level. This paper estimates market structure models for raw milk in Ukraine using a translog production function for the processing sector at the national and regional level. The results suggest the existence of oligopsony power in three of 25 administrative regions in Ukraine, coupled with a potential deviation of procurement prices for raw milk from the value marginal product of raw milk ranging from 24.6% to 49.4%.