The duration of business cycle expansions and contractions: are there change-points in duration dependence?

The business cycles literature shows that the likelihood of an expansion or contraction ending increases with its age, i.e. they exhibit positive duration dependence. This evidence rests on the assumption that the magnitude of duration dependence is the same over time. However, we assume that the degree of likeliness of an expansion or contraction ending as it gets older might indeed change after a specific duration. Estimating a continuous-time Weibull model for a group of 13 industrial countries over the period 1948–2009 and allowing for the presence of a change-point in the duration-dependence parameter; we conclude that the evidence of positive duration dependence is no longer present when an expansion surpasses 10 years of duration.     

The folk theorem for repeated games with observation costs

The folk theorem literature has been relaxing the assumption on how much players know about each other's past action. Here we consider a general model where players can “buy” precise information. Every period, each player decides whether to pay a cost to accurately observe the actions chosen by other players in the previous period. When a player does not pay the cost, he obtains only imperfect private signals. Observational decisions are unobservable to others. Known strategies such as trigger strategies do not work since they fail to motivate players to pay for information. This paper shows that the folk theorem holds for any level of observation costs. Unlike existing folk theorems with private monitoring, ours imposes virtually no restriction on the nature of costless imperfect signals. The theorem does not use explicit or costless communication, thereby having implications on antitrust laws that rely on evidence of explicit communication. The main message is that accurate observation alone, however costly, enables efficient cooperation in general repeated games.     

First-round “crowding out” in a generalized IS-LM model

A standard result of IS-LM analysis is that fiscal policy has no first-round effects on income if the LM curve is vertical. IS-LM models, however, are based on the restrictive assumption of a one commodity production technology. This paper relaxes this assumption and shows that complete, first-round crowding out is consistent with a negative interest elasticity of the demand for money.     

USING FUNCTIONINGS TO ESTIMATE EQUIVALENCE SCALES

Equivalence scales are used to enable welfare comparisons across heterogeneous households. In this paper, we propose to use the achievement of a certain level of functioning as the identifying assumption for the derivation of equivalence scales. This will allow us not only to deal with welfare comparisons between households of different size and composition, but will also enable us to incorporate other characteristics (such as location and employment status) in the creation of equivalence scales for welfare comparisons. The paper applies this approach to create equivalence scales for the functioning “shelter” using Belgian and Italian data. The analysis shows that the income differences associated with different characteristics only play a small role in explaining differences in functionings. An important policy message is therefore that compensating people for functioning shortfalls in monetary terms may not be sensible.     

Weak stability and a bargaining set for the marriage model

In this note we introduce weak stability, a relaxation of the concept of stability for the marriage model by assuming that the agents are no longer myopic in choosing a blocking pair. The new concept is based on threats within blocking pairs: an individually rational matching is weakly stable if for every blocking pair one of the members can find a more attractive partner with whom he forms another blocking pair for the original matching. Our main result is that under the assumption of strict preferences, the set of weakly stable and weakly efficient matchings coincides with the bargaining set of Zhou (1994, Games Econ. Behav. 6, 512–526) for this context.     

Unequal Contributions from Symmetric Agents in a Local Interaction Model

The main findings of the theory on the private provision of public goods under the assumptions of symmetric agents and normality are that (1) there exists a unique Nash equilibrium in which everybody contributes the same; and (2) this pattern is stable. We show that these findings no longer hold in a context characterized by local interaction. In this context, it is always possible to find preferences satisfying the assumption of normality such that the symmetric Nash equilibrium is unstable, and there exist asymmetric Nash equilibria which are locally stable.     

Accumulation of knowledge and increasing returns in neoclassical models

In the mid 1980s there was a remarkable revival of interest in growth theory. A relevant strand of new literature is characterized by the departure from the assumption of diminishing returns of capital or, more generally, of the accumulated factor. In this paper we will see how the neoclassical theorists incorporated the idea of increasing returns in the formal models of economic growth, already an important question in the sixties. The central point is that the recent recognition of the importance of this notion is not new but now depends on the vision of economic growth as driven by knowledge accumulation and no longer by capital accumulation as in the Solovian tradition. I would like to thank the referee for valuable comments and suggestions.     

基于SMRM的国家森林公园环境解说系统构建研究

基于环境解说系统规划SMRM模式,以福州国家森林公园环境资源发展现状为背景,从解说信息的发送者、信息传递媒介、信息接受者三个要素对国家森林公园环境解说系统构建进行深入研究,研究表明福州国家森林公园应以提升游客游憩体验,唤起环保意识为解说目的,在充分考虑游客的旅游行为偏好及使用解说系统行为特征的基础上应用多样化的解说媒介满足游客的多元需求。     

Signaling in Political Budget Cycles: How Far Are You Willing to Go?

A key assumption in the literature on political cycles with rational voters and opportunistic politicians is that opportunism is common knowledge. In this framework, political cycles have been interpreted as a signal of competency. However, if opportunism is not common knowledge, cycles may no longer indicate competency, but rather opportunism. This is because highly opportunistic incumbents are willing to go farther to be reelected. Since political cycles require discretionality to reallocate budget items, a decrease of discretionality curbs cycles. It may also make elections more effective at selecting competent incumbents.     

FDI产业关联测度假定及其对FDI溢出效应研究结果的影响

首先分析了现有文献中在测算FDI产业关联指标时的假定(国内资本的直接消耗系数等于FDI的直接消耗系数)与我国现实的相符程度,然后利用相关统计资料推导出适当放宽该假定后测算FDI产业关联的方法,最后利用2003—2010年我国制造业行业的数据,检验了放宽该假定是否显著影响我国FDI产业关联指标的测算结果及FDI垂直溢出效应的研究结论。结果显示:放宽该假定对我国FDI产业关联指标的测算结果和FDI垂直溢出效应的研究结论均有显著影响。据此指出:在研究相关FDI产业关联问题时,适当放宽该假定能得到更可靠的研究结论。     

Natural Resources and Missing Inputs in International Productivity Comparisons*

Standard theory for cross-country productivity comparisons assumes all countries use the same factor inputs in production. This assumption is violated when including natural resources, such as oil, gas and gold, because countries do not extract the full set of resources. In this paper we propose a solution by viewing it as a “missing goods” problem and assigning missing inputs a reservation price equal to the world resource price. We show that this has a substantial impact on relative productivity levels for countries heavily reliant on natural resources for generating their income. Under our new productivity measure, resource-rich countries are no longer uncommonly productive.     

Duration of bankruptcy proceedings and monetary policy effectiveness

A common assumption in well-known costly-state-verification frameworks is that when a borrower defaults, creditors receive a payoff immediately (after incurring bankruptcy costs). While this assumption enhances tractability, it is unrealistic given the considerable delays in the actual practice of bankruptcy. In this paper, I identify the duration of bankruptcy proceedings as an additional source of friction in financial markets and investigate the relationship between this friction and the effectiveness of monetary policy by using U.S. state-level data. Consistent with the commonly-observed positive relationship between the degree of standard financial frictions and the amplitude of macroeconomic responses, I find that U.S. monetary policy is most effective in states with longer bankruptcy proceedings.     

Inter-gender interaction and communication in ultimatum games

In this article, we focus on bargaining within male–female pairs, the most pervasive partnership in humankind. We analyse data from an ultimatum game played by Greek participants. Parallel to this, we introduce a one-way communication protocol according to which the responders can send short messages to the receivers, after making their decisions. The analysis shows that gender and message effects exist and males are more effective bargainers.     

Promises and lies: can observers detect deception in written messages

We design a laboratory experiment to examine predictions of trustworthiness in a novel three-person trust game. We investigate whether and why observers of the game can predict the trustworthiness of hand-written communications. Observers report their perception of the trustworthiness of messages, and make predictions about the senders’ behavior. Using observers’ decisions, we are able to classify messages as “promises” or “empty talk.” Drawing from substantial previous research, we hypothesize that certain factors influence whether a sender is likely to honor a message and/or whether an observer perceives the message as likely to behonored: the mention of money; the use of encompassing words; and message length. We find that observers have more trust in longer messages and “promises”; promises that mention money are significantly more likely to be broken; and observers trust equally in promises that do and do not mention money. Overall, observers perform slightly better than chance at predicting whether a message will be honored. We attribute this result to observers’ ability to distinguish promises from empty talk, and to trust promises more than empty talk. However, within each of these two categories, observers are unable to discern between messages that senders will honor from those that they will not.     

Is Stolper–Samuelson dangerous and FPE a failure?

The Heckscher–Ohlin model has spawned the twin theorems of Stolper–Samuelson and factor-price equalization (FPE), both of which concern the effects of international trade on wages and income distribution. A recent literature, critical of both theorems, claims that they no longer serve as a useful guide for understanding the complex web of trade and wages. This literature also claims that the twin theorems are empirically misleading and irrelevant. The present essay argues that the critics have exaggerated the empirical failure of the twin theorems and, more importantly, they have missed the central message of the theorems; especially, that of Stolper–Samuelson on the optimality of free trade.     

An economic agent in my brain? A critical analysis of multiple-self models in neuroeconomics

Neuroeconomic multiple-self models describe individuals’ choices as the equilibrium of the interaction amongst neural sites modelled as economic agents. This approach aims at explaining some inter-temporal inconsistency problems and the rejection of unfair offers in ultimatum games. However, the experiments on these models do not provide replicable results. The standard view interprets this problem as due to inadequate econometric techniques. Conversely, this paper shows that the non-replicability problem arises from a conundrum of multiple-self models’ (MSMs) theory. It illustrates how the assumption of neuroeconomic agents is deduced from the revealed preferences theory applied to the neuro-level. Therefore, the paper shows how experiments on MSMs cannot test the assumption of neuroeconomic agents but only the empirical hypotheses that derive from it. This entails that the assumption of neuroeconomic agents is a tautology, which might generate hypotheses that do not robustly identify the neural correlates of behaviour.     

Delegation and Information Sharing in Cournot Duopoly

Information sharing in oligopoly has been analyzed by assuming that firms behave as a sole economic agent. In this paper it is assumed that ownership and management are separated. Contrary to the classical result of information sharing in a Cournot duopoly with private cost information, the paper shows that information sharing is no longer always a dominant strategy and expected consumer surplus is no longer always decreased. The paper determines the circumstances under which information is exchanged and analyzes its welfare consequences.      

The "old age security hypothesis" reconsidered

"That the introduction of a means for transferring present to future consumption other than children in a developing country will reduce the rate of population growth is shown to depend crucially on the assumption that parents do not care about the numbers or the welfare of the children they have. When parents do care, the conclusion no longer unambiguously follows because the new means for providing for parents' old age leads to a positive income effect."     

SHIRKING,STANDARDS AND THE PROBABILITY OF DETECTION

By relaxing the common efficiency wage assumption of exogenous shirking detection probabilities, we demonstrate how standards and efficiency wages are related. In a more general setting where the probability of detection depends upon the equilibrium effort level of non‐shirkers, we show that the uniformly positive (negative) supply‐side relationship between wages (unemployment insurance) and effort is no longer guaranteed. Profit maximization on the part of the firm, however, ensures that effort will depend positively (negatively) on wages (unemployment insurance) in equilibrium.     

JOB SEARCH WITH BIDDER MEMORIES*

This article revisits the no‐recall assumption in job search models with take‐it‐or‐leave‐it offers. Workers who can recall previously encountered potential employers in order to engage them in Bertrand bidding have a distinct advantage over workers without such attachments. Firms account for this difference when hiring a worker. When a worker first meets a firm, the firm offers the worker a sufficient share of the match rents to avoid a bidding war in the future. The pair share the gains to trade. In this case, the Diamond paradox no longer holds.