Imperfect durability and the Coase conjecture

This article considers a market served by a monopolist who sells a durable good that depreciates stochastically over time. We show that there exist three types of stationary equilibria: a Coase Conjecture equilibrium, a monopoly equilibrium, and a reputational equilibrium. When the depreciation rate is low, the Coase Conjecture equilibrium is the unique equilibrium. For intermediate values of the depreciation rate, all three equilibrium types coexist. When the depreciation rate is high, the monopoly equilibrium is the unique equilibrium. Consequently, when selling a good of sufficiently low durability, the monopolist does not lose any of her monopoly power. Furthermore, the steady‐state output in the reputational equilibrium falls below the monopoly quantity. Hence, in durable goods markets, welfare losses due to monopoly power may be larger than in markets for perishables.     

Monopoly with resale

We examine the intricacies associated with the design of revenue‐maximizing mechanisms for a monopolist who expects her buyers to resell. We consider two cases: resale to a third party who does not participate in the primary market and interbidder resale, where the winner resells to the losers. To influence the resale outcome, the monopolist must design an allocation rule and a disclosure policy that optimally fashion the beliefs of the participants in the secondary market. Our results show that the revenue‐maximizing mechanism may require a stochastic selling procedure and a disclosure policy richer than the simple announcement of the decision to sell to a particular buyer.     

Contrarian Profits and the Overreaction Hypothesis: the Case of the Athens Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the existence of contrarian profits and their sources for the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). The empirical analysis decomposes contrarian profits to sources due to common factor reactions, overreaction to firm‐specific information, and profits not related to the previous two terms, as suggested by Jegadeesh and Titman (1995). Furthermore, in view of recent evidence that common stock returns are related to firm characteristics such as size and book‐to‐market equity, the paper decomposes contrarian profits to sources due to factors derived from the Fama and French (1993, 1996) three‐factor model. For the empirical testing, size‐sorted sub‐samples that are rebalanced annually are employed, and in addition, adjustments for thin and infrequent trading are made to the data. The results indicate that serial correlation is present in equity returns and that it leads to significant short‐run contrarian profits that persist even after we adjust for market frictions. Consistent with findings for the US market, contrarian profits decline as one moves from small stocks to large stocks, but only when market frictions are considered. Furthermore, the contribution to contrarian profits due to the overreaction to the firm‐specific component appears larger than the underreaction to the common factors.     

Delayed Expected Loss Recognition and the Risk Profile of Banks

This paper investigates the extent to which delayed expected loan loss recognition (DELR) is associated with greater vulnerability of banks to three distinct dimensions of risk: (1) stock market liquidity risk, (2) downside tail risk of individual banks, and (3) codependence of downside tail risk among banks. We hypothesize that DELR increases vulnerability to downside risk by creating expected loss overhangs that threaten future capital adequacy and by degrading bank transparency, which increases financing frictions and opportunities for risk‐shifting. We find that DELR is associated with higher correlations between bank‐level illiquidity and both aggregate banking sector illiquidity and market returns (i.e., higher liquidity risks) during recessions, suggesting that high DELR banks as a group may simultaneously face elevated financing frictions and enhanced opportunities for risk‐shifting behavior in crisis periods. With respect to downside risk, we find that during recessions DELR is associated with significantly higher risk of individual banks suffering severe drops in their equity values, where this association is magnified for banks with low capital levels. Consistent with increased systemic risk, we find that DELR is associated with significantly higher codependence between downside risk of individual banks and downside risk of the banking sector. We theorize that downside risk vulnerability at the individual bank level can translate into systemic risk by virtue of DELR creating a common source of risk vulnerability across high DELR banks simultaneously, which leads to risk codependence among banks and systemic effects from banks acting as part of a herd.     

‘Hot’ Debt Markets and Capital Structure

This paper examines the motives of debt issuance during hot‐debt market periods and its impact on capital structure over the period 1970–2006. We find that perceived capital market conditions as favourable, an indication of market timing, and adverse selection costs of equity (i.e., information asymmetry) are important frictions that lead certain firms to issue more debt in hot‐ than cold‐debt market periods. Using alternative hot‐debt market issuance measures and controlling for other effects, such as structural shifts in the debt market, industry, book‐to‐market, price‐to‐earnings, size, tax rates, debt market conditions and adjustment costs based on debt credit ratings, we find that firms with high adverse selection costs issue substantially more (less) debt when market conditions are perceived as hot (cold). Moreover, the results indicate that there is a persistent hot‐debt market effect on the capital structure of debt issuers; hot‐debt market issuing firms do not actively rebalance their leverage to stay within an optimal capital structure range.     

Limited Liability and Market Power

This paper evaluates the welfare effects of limited liability on firm behavior when market power is present. A risk-neutral monopolist facing uncertain demand (with constant returns to scale technology) produces higher output, yielding higher expected profits when costless exit is induced by limited liability. The higher output may increase social welfare (monopolist profit plus consumer surplus) even though the monopolist may overproduce relative to the quantity that maximizes social welfare. When no market power is present, the overproduction resulting from the provision of limited liability results in loss of social welfare. Appropriate use of liability limitation laws can thus provide policy makers an additional policy instrument with which to mitigate the effects of market power.JEL Classification: D24, D41, D42, G32, G38     

Real Effects of Money Growth and Optimal Rate of Inflation in a Cash‐in‐Advance Economy with Labor‐Market Frictions

This paper studies the consequences of labor‐market frictions for the real effects of steady inflation when cash is required for households' consumption purchases and firms' wage payments. Money growth may generate a positive real effect by encouraging vacancy creation and raising job matches. This may result in a positive optimal rate of inflation, particularly in an economy with moderate money injections to firms and with nonnegligible labor‐market frictions in which wage bargains are not efficient. This main finding holds for a wide range of money injection schemes, with alternative cash constraints, and in a second‐best world with preexisting distortionary taxes.     

Equity compensation and the sensitivity of research and development to financial market frictions

When financial market frictions exist, executives may have to decide which investment activities to reduce when internal funds decrease. Expenditures on research and development (R&D) may be particularly vulnerable because of the long-term nature of innovative activity. We find that equity compensation is associated with lower levels of firm R&D expenditures. Rewarding executives to incur more risk has little effect on R&D expenditures, but rewarding executives for higher returns reduces R&D expenditures and makes R&D expenditures more sensitive to financial market frictions. In contrast, cash compensation reduces the sensitivity of R&D expenditures to financial market frictions.     

Damaged durable goods

I analyze a durable‐goods monopolist's incentives to introduce a damaged good (a stripped‐down version of the original good) in an infinite‐horizon framework. The damaged good helps the monopolist to mitigate the Coasian time‐inconsistency problem. However, it may lead to a welfare reduction: low‐valuation buyers are induced to purchase the low‐quality damaged good early rather than buy the high‐quality original good later, and when the players are patient the surplus loss from quality reduction outweighs the gain from earlier consumptions. This welfare result contrasts with the previous literature based on a static framework.     

Over‐the‐Counter Market Frictions and Yield Spread Changes

We empirically study whether systematic over‐the‐counter (OTC) market frictions drive the large unexplained common factor in yield spread changes. Using transaction data on U.S. corporate bonds, we find that marketwide inventory, search, and bargaining frictions explain 23.4% of the variation in the common component. Systematic OTC frictions thus substantially improve the explanatory power of yield spread changes and account for one‐third of their total explained variation. Search and bargaining frictions combined explain more in the common dynamics of yield spread changes than inventory frictions. Our findings support the implications of leading theories of intermediation frictions in OTC markets.     

Asset Pricing with Dynamic Margin Constraints

This paper provides a novel theoretical analysis of how endogenous time‐varying margin requirements affect capital market equilibrium. I find that margin requirements, when there are no other market frictions, reduce the volatility and correlation of returns as well as the risk‐free rate, but increase the market price of risk, the risk premium, and the price of risky assets. Furthermore, margin requirements generate a strong cross‐sectional dispersion of stock return volatilities. The results emphasize that a general equilibrium analysis may reverse the conclusions of a partial equilibrium analysis often employed in the literature.     

The role of two frictions in geographic price dispersion: When market friction meets nominal rigidity

This paper empirically investigates and theoretically derives the implications of two frictions, market friction and nominal rigidity, on the dynamic properties of intra-national relative prices, with an emphasis on the interaction of the two frictions. By analyzing a panel of retail prices of 45 products for 48 U.S. cities over the period 1985–2009, we make two major arguments. First, the effect of each type of friction on the dynamics of intercity price gaps is quite different. While market frictions arising from physical distance and transportation costs have a positive impact on volatility and persistence of intercity price dispersion, nominal rigidities have a positive impact on persistence but a negative impact on volatility. This empirical evidence is different from what is predicted by standard theoretical cross-country models based on price stickiness. Second, complementarities exist between market frictions and nominal rigidities such that the marginal effect of a market friction dwindles as nominal rigidities increase. We provide an alternative theoretical explanation for this finding by extending the state-dependent pricing (SDP) model of Dotsey et al. (1999) and show that our two-city model with nominal rigidity and market frictions can successfully explain the salient features of the dynamic behavior of intercity price differences that have not been captured in previous analysis.     

Deep Habits,Price Rigidities,and the Consumption Response to Government Spending

This paper studies two frictions, good‐specific habit formation and price rigidities, used in theoretical models to generate the crowding‐in of consumption by expansionary government spending observed in the data. Both frictions generate countercyclical price markups, rising wages, and ensuing consumption–leisure substitution to overcome the negative wealth effect of the fiscal expansion. I demonstrate that while they independently support the rise of consumption, when used together the two frictions exert opposing pressures on the markup and the wage, weakening consumption–leisure substitution. Crucially, when price stickiness is high enough in an economy with “deep” habits, consumption is crowded out by the fiscal expansion.     

Benchmarks in Search Markets

We characterize the role of benchmarks in price transparency of over‐the‐counter markets. A benchmark can raise social surplus by increasing the volume of beneficial trade, facilitating more efficient matching between dealers and customers, and reducing search costs. Although the market transparency promoted by benchmarks reduces dealers' profit margins, dealers may nonetheless introduce a benchmark to encourage greater market participation by investors. Low‐cost dealers may also introduce a benchmark to increase their market share relative to high‐cost dealers. We construct a revelation mechanism that maximizes welfare subject to search frictions, and show conditions under which it coincides with announcing the benchmark.     

Limits‐to‐arbitrage,investment frictions,and the investment effect: New evidence

This study comprehensively reexamines the debate over behavioral and rational explanations for the investment effect in an updated sample. We closely follow the previous literature and provide several differences. Our tests include five prominent measures of corporate investment and corporate profitability in q‐theory and recent investment‐based asset pricing models. Both classical and Bayesian inferences show that limits‐to‐arbitrage tend to be supported by more evidence than investment frictions for all investment measures. When idiosyncratic volatility and cash flow volatility are used in measuring investment frictions, the inference is more favorable for the rational explanation.     

Price discrimination in input markets

We analyze the short‐ and long‐run implications of third‐degree price discrimination in input markets. In contrast to the extant literature, which typically assumes that the supplier is an unconstrained monopolist, in our model input prices are constrained by the threat of demand‐side substitution. In our model, the more efficient buyer receives a discount. A ban on price discrimination thus benefits smaller but hurts more efficient, larger firms. It also stifles incentives to invest and innovate. With linear demand, a ban on price discrimination benefits consumers in the short run but reduces consumer surplus in the long run, which is once again the opposite of what is found without the threat of demand‐side substitution.     

Estimating the Gains from Trade in Limit-Order Markets

We present a method to estimate the gains from trade in limit‐order markets and provide empirical evidence that the limit‐order market is a good market design. Using observations on order submissions and execution and cancellation histories, we estimate both the distribution of traders' unobserved valuations for the stock and latent trader arrival rates. We use the resulting estimates to compute the current gains from trade, the gains from trade in a perfectly liquid market, and the gains from trade with a monopoly liquidity supplier. The current gains are 90% of the maximum gains and 150% of the monopolist gains.     

Venture Capital and Capital Allocation

I show that venture capitalists' motivation to build reputation can have beneficial effects in the primary market, mitigating information frictions and helping firms go public. Because uninformed reputation‐motivated venture capitalists want to appear informed, they are biased against backing firms—by not backing firms, they avoid taking low‐value firms to market, which would ultimately reveal their lack of information. In equilibrium, reputation‐motivated venture capitalists back relatively few bad firms, creating a certification effect that mitigates information frictions. However, they also back relatively few good firms, and thus, reputation motivation decreases welfare when good firms are abundant or profitable.     

Information Sales and Insider Trading with Long-Lived Information

Fundamental information resembles in many respects a durable good. Hence, the effects of its incorporation into stock prices depend on who is the agent controlling its flow. Like a durable goods monopolist, a monopolistic analyst selling information intertemporally competes against herself. This forces her to partially relinquish control over the information flow to traders. Conversely, an insider solves the intertemporal competition problem through vertical integration, thus exerting tighter control over the information flow. Comparing market patterns I show that a dynamic market where information is provided by an analyst is thicker and more informative than one where an insider trades.     

THE EFFECTS OF DECIMALIZATION ON RETURN VOLATILITY COMPONENTS,SERIAL CORRELATION,AND TRADING COSTS

We examine the composition of return volatility, serial correlation, and trading costs before and after decimalization on the New York Stock Exchange. We decompose the variance of price changes into components associated with public news, rounding errors, and market‐making frictions. We find that when stocks move from a fractional to a decimal trading system, the variance components due to market‐making frictions and rounding errors decline significantly, whereas the component due to public news remains unchanged. The serial correlation of price changes weakens substantially after decimalization. The uninformed component of bid‐ask spreads decreases significantly whereas the informed component has no significant change.