Information Processing Hierarchies

This paper characterizes optimal stationary hierarchies based on an information processing model introduced by Radner. We show how the delay, size (number of processors), capacity (the size of each cohort processed), and throughput (frequency of cohort arrival) are related and determine a feasibility frontier in the space of these variables. The structure of efficient hierarchies implementing the points on the feasibility frontier is also specified. These structures are always nonregular; i.e., every agent has subordinates from several different levels. The nature of the long accepted maxim of decreasing returns to scale in management hierarchies is demonstrated. When the production function of the hierarchy is taken to be the number of information items it can process, we find that returns to size and delay are always decreasing in efficient hierarchies, but these variables are complementary in the design problem. Finally, we discuss how the underlying abilities of the processors affect the marginal returns to size and delay. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: L22, D83.     

Portfolio Choice and Liquidity Constraints*

We study the infinite‐horizon model of household portfolio choice under liquidity constraints and revisit the portfolio specialization puzzle. We show why the puzzle is robust to several model variations, and argue that positive correlation between earnings shocks and stock returns is unlikely to provide an empirically plausible resolution. We find that relatively small fixed costs for stock market entry are sufficient to deter stockholding because, for a plausible range of parameter values, households can achieve desired consumption smoothing with small or zero holdings of stocks. Such costs could arise from informational considerations, sign‐up fees, and investor inertia.     

Cooperation in Stochastic OLG games

This paper builds on Cremer's (Quart. J. Econ. 101 (1986) 33) seminal analysis which shows that (almost) complete cooperation can be achieved as an equilibrium in a game played by overlapping generations of players if the institution in which players cooperate is infinitely lived.We analyze a similar model in which the costs of cooperation are subject to random shocks. Even if these random shocks are very small, the range of parameters for which cooperation can be sustained is decreased considerably in comparison to the deterministic case. Furthermore, we show how the efficient outcome can be approximated if the level of cooperation can be varied continuously and the cooperation technology has decreasing or constant returns to scale, while this is not possible in the case of increasing returns to scale.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIRM BOUNDARY AND FINANCING CONSTRAINTS ON UTILITY COSTS: THE CASE OF MUNICIPALLY OWNED ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION UTILITIES

ABSTRACT: A number of studies have examined costs and potential for scale and scope economies in electricity distribution; however, few if any, have examined this area in terms of the unique constraints associated with municipal ownership or historical and regulatory constraints associated with former municipal ownership. This paper focuses on 19 distribution‐only municipally owned utilities for a ten‐year period (1988–97). Distortions from variable outputs but largely fixed inputs are minimized. The data used were collected specifically to assess productivity, cost, and efficiency performance and include value‐based capital inputs and service prices. Outputs include energy conveyed and number of connections; inputs include capital, system losses, labour, and materials. We examine the effect of using third‐party financing (e.g., connection charges), with its inherent principal‐agent problems, on utility costs, as well as the effect of shared services and multi‐utility output (e.g., electricity and water). A translog total cost function is estimated. Our findings suggest significant returns to scope but also significant increases in costs associated with the use of third‐party financing. The results also suggest scale diseconomies. Shared outputs, which have been greatly restricted or eliminated under restructuring, may have provided larger, and now lost, economies than the scale returns blindly pursued by some through restructuring or incented/forced mergers or divestitures. Finally, it is clear that third‐party financing can raise costs; such financing is widely used among utilities providing electricity, gas, water, and telecommunications, and should be closely scrutinized.     

Indeterminacy and cycles in two-sector discrete-time model

Summary. We consider a discrete-time two-sector Cobb-Douglas economy with positive sector specific external effects. We show that indeterminacy of steady states and cycles can easily arise with constant or decreasing social returns to scale, and very small market imperfections. This is in sharp contrast with most of the contributions in the literature in which increasing social returns are required to generate indeterminacy. Received: July 31, 2000; revised version: June 5, 2001     

Dynamic factor demands and adjustment costs: An analysis of bell Canada's Technology

In this paper a dynamic model of production is estimated for Bell Canada. The dynamics arise from the costs of adjustment associated with capital expansion. Estimation results showed that there are significant adjustment costs. Thus, the hypothesis of long-run cost minimization is rejected. As Bell Canada increases its capital stock by $1, there are additional adjustment costs of $0.36. This result implies that Bell Canada minimizes the present value of production and adjustment costs which results in a short-run equilibrium position. Price, substitution and output elasticities are estimated. In the short-run the inputs are substitutes and the price effects are highly inelastic. Overshooting occurs with respect to labour and material demands in the short-run since the demand for capital responds very little to output expansion. Returns to scale are also estimated in this cost of adjustment model. Bell Canada exhibits increasing returns to scale initially and then decreasing returns such that on average there are constant returns to scale with a scale elasticity of 1.08.     

Labor Market Information Acquisition and Downsizing

We study the optimal mechanism for downsizing the public sector which takes into account different informational constraints (complete versus asymmetric information on each worker’s efficiency) and political constraints (mandatory versus voluntary downsizing). Under complete information, the optimal structure of downsizing (who is laid‐off and who is not) does not depend on the political constraint and is determined by the (marginal) cost of retaining a worker in the public sector. Since this cost includes his opportunity cost in the private sector, information acquisition on opportunity costs affects the structure of downsizing. Under asymmetric information, the political constraints determine which workers obtain information rents and therefore affect the structure of downsizing. An increase in the precision of the information on workers’ opportunity costs may increase or decrease social welfare depending on its impacts on the information rents.     

Where are we in the political economy of reform?

We review the experiences of developing countries with market-oriented reforms, using the tools of modern political economy. We impose intellectual discipline by requiring that actors behave rationally using available information and that basic economic relationships such as budget constraints be accounted for. We attempt to integrate two approaches, one based on dynamic games played by interest groups, with one that focus on limited information and the dynamics of learning.

We describe the “starting point” as the set of “old” policies and we attempt to explain the dynamics (political, economic and informational) that lead to reform (section II). We analyze strategies for reformers subject to political constraints (section Ш). We evaluate the aggregate and distributional costs of reforms, emphasizing the importance of looking at the right counterfactuals (section IV).

We conclude by pointing to the challenges ahead: the second-stage institutional reforms necessary to take off from underdevelopment.     

HOW TO DESIGN INFRASTRUCTURE CONTRACTS IN A WARMING WORLD: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS*

We analyze how long‐term uncertainty, for example, regarding future climate conditions, affects the design of concession contracts and organizational forms in a principal–agent context, with dynamic moral hazard, limited liability, and irreversibility constraints. The prospect of future, uncertain productivity shocks on the returns on the firm's effort creates an option value of delaying efforts, a course that exacerbates agency costs. Contracts and organizational forms are drafted to control this cost of delegated flexibility. The possibility for the agent to delay investment in response to uncertainty and irreversibility also elicits preference for unbundling different stages of the project through short‐term contracts. Our analysis is relevant to infrastructure sectors that are sensitive to changing weather conditions and sheds a pessimistic light on the relevance of public–private partnerships in this context.     

Investor Reaction to Inter-corporate Business Contracting: Evidence and Explanation

We examine the stock market reaction to 1227 inter-corporate ordinary business contract announcements reported by Dow Jones between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 2001. Around contract announcement dates, we find statistically significant positive average abnormal returns and abnormal trading volume for contractors, but insignificant positive abnormal returns and negative abnormal volume for contractees. Cross-sectionally, contract announcement period returns are higher for contractors who are small relative to the contract size, have higher return volatility, larger market-to-book ratios and higher profitability. The announcement period returns of contract-awarding firms are not significant and are only marginally related to cross-sectional explanatory factors. The results are consistent with two explanatory stories: contractor quasi-rents induced by the winner's curse and information signalling about contractor production costs. The results are not consistent with perfect competition, with contracts having positive net present values for both parties, and with a version of incomplete contracting theory.     

Financial constraints on investments: A three-pillar approach

Recent theoretical analyses demonstrate how informational asymmetries between financiers and investors may generate credit rationing and positive cost differentials between external and internal financing sources. The traditional empirical approach used to test for the presence of financing constraints at firm level is based on two pillars: a priori identification of relatively more financially constrained firms and econometric estimation of an investment demand function. This approach has been seriously questioned due to several methodological problems. This paper intends to amend it by adding a third pillar: the informational content of direct revelation through qualitative data. The paper estimates a reduced form investment equation following the Euler equation approach, and combines a priori information and direct qualitative information to consistently estimate for each firm the probability of being financially constrained. Our main finding is that when financially constrained firms are properly identified, the neoclassical model is rejected only for unconstrained firms. This indirectly rescues the validity of the Euler equation approach. Moreover, financially constrained firms show a positive correlation between investment and lagged cash flow.     

Foreign Direct Investment and the Unionization Rate

Technological innovations improve the welfare of a country facing fixed terms of trade, but may lead to immiserization when the terms of terms of trade are adversely affected. This paper establishes that transport innovation can be immiserizing for a small country when the transport sector exhibits variable returns to scale. The release of resources from the transport sector triggers Rybczynski-like effects, and the resulting expansion (contraction) in the volume of trade and in the demand for transport services raises unit costs of these services, and may reduce welfare in the presence of decreasing (increasing) returns to scale. [411]     

Licensing under convex costs

We show that both the outside and inside innovators license a new product (or drastic process innovation) to all potential licensees in the presence of convex costs, which occur under decreasing returns to scale technologies. An implication of our analysis is that a monopolist producer may prefer technology licensing in a homogeneous goods industry. We also show that an inside innovator’s incentive for innovation may be higher than that of an outside innovator.     

The relation between the informational content of implied volatility and arbitrage costs: Evidence from the Oslo Stock Exchange

This study investigates the proposition that volatility of stock returns can be predicted from the volatility implied by options on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE), conditional on the ability to perform arbitrage. Insights into the relation between the informational content of implied volatility and arbitrage cost can be distilled from Oslo Stock Exchange data. For Norwegian firms, options and their underlying stock trade on the Oslo Stock Exchange and have an overlapping set of market makers thereby lowering the cost of arbitrage. Other components of arbitrage trading costs, liquidity and dispersion of stock return volatility, vary widely across Norwegian firms. Moreover, restriction on the short selling of stock in Oslo allows further insight into the role of arbitrage costs in determining the informational content of implied volatility. The results yield support for the arbitrage cost hypothesis: the lower the arbitrage cost between the stock and the option, the greater the informational content of implied volatility.     

Imagery and Financial Judgment

Many studies have indicated that a buy-and-hold investment strategy is superior to a trading strategy. This is thought to be true because trading incurs transaction costs that lower net returns compared to a buy-and-hold strategy. We propose a behavioral finance argument to illustrate that merely switching between positive expected return assets can lead to a long-run negative expected return, even when transaction costs are ignored. This counterintuitive result may obtain because of Parrondo's Paradox. We provide a stylized theoretical example that demonstrates how a trader can lose money by trading between assets with positive long-run expected returns. We also present simulation results to support our example. Thus, long-run negative results from trading may not be due entirely to transaction costs. A trading strategy may prove inferior to buy-and-hold for agents simply because of their singular trading patterns, as we outline in the paper.     

Can information and counseling help students from poor rural areas go to high school? Evidence from China

Recent studies have shown that only about two-thirds of the students from poor, rural areas in China finish junior high school and enter high school. One factor that may be behind the low rates of high school attendance is that students may be misinformed about the returns to schooling or lack career planning skills. We therefore conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial (RCT) using a sample of 131 junior high schools and more than 12,000 students to test the effects of providing information on returns or career planning skills on student dropout, academic achievement and plans to go to high school. Contrary to previous studies, we find that information does not have significant effects on student outcomes. Unlike information, counseling does have an effect. However, the effect is somewhat surprising. Our findings suggest that counseling increases dropouts and seems to lower academic achievement. In our analysis of the causal chain, we conclude that financial constraints and the poor quality of education in junior high schools in poor, rural areas (the venue of the study) may be contributing to the absence of positive impacts on student outcomes from information and counseling. The negative effects of counseling on dropout may also be due to the high and growing wages for unskilled labor (high opportunity costs) in China’s transitioning economy. It is possible that when our counseling curriculum informed the students about the reality of how difficult were the requirements for entering academic high school, it may have induced them to revise their benefit-cost calculations and come to the realization that they are better off dropping out and/or working less hard in school.     

Estimating Scale and Scope Economies with Fourier Flexible Functional Form – Evidence from Taiwan's Banking Industry

In this study the scale and scope economies for Taiwan's banking sector using panel data from 22 domestic banks for the period 1981–1997 is investigated quantitatively using both a Fourier flexible functional form, first proposed by Gallant (1981, 1982), and a translog function. This study's results favour the use of the former, based on tests of regression coefficients and on estimates of various economy measures. The Fourier evidence shows that only smaller banks exhibit increasing returns to scale, while larger banks exhibit decreasing returns to scale. Conversely, the translog indicates that all the sample groups continue to enjoy economies of scale. Banks in Taiwan exhibit scope diseconomies, which suggest that sample banks should continue efforts to diversify their financial products, which in turn could substantially reduce their average costs.     

Market Crashes and Informational Avalanches

This paper analyses a security market with transaction costs and a sequential trading structure. Transaction costs may prevent many traders from revealing their private information if they trade in a sequential fashion. Due to the information aggregation failure, hidden information gets accumulated in the market which may be revealed by a small trigger, yielding a high volatility in the absence of an accompanying event. The paper first characterizes the optimal trading strategy of the agent which constitute the unique equilibrium. Further properties of the price sequence are obtained using the concepts of informational cascade and informational avalanche.
The results are applied to the explanation of market crashes. In particular, the dynamics of market crashes are illustrated as evolving through the following four phases: (1) boom; (2) euphoria; (3) trigger; and (4) panic; where the euphoria corresponds to the informational cascade and the panic corresponds to the informational avalanche.     

Masterful Meisters? Voluntary Certification and Quality in the German Crafts Sector

Voluntary certification systems potentially reduce search costs in markets with imperfect information. Service markets with many heterogeneous firms – such as the crafts market – are prone to information imperfections and can therefore potentially benefit from such informational mechanisms. We examine if the Meister qualification in the German crafts sector improves service quality as perceived by consumers. We find a significant and positive relationship between the Meister title and consumer ratings and conclude that the certificate is a credible sign of quality.     

Incentive Regulation and The Cost Structure of The Local Telephone Exchange Network

This paper combines an engineering process model of the cost of local exchange telecommunications firms with an analytical model of optimal incentive regulation (with ex post cost observability), to study empirically the properties of the optimal regulatory mechanism. Relying on detailed properties of the cost function, we examine three issues: (i) the extent of natural monopoly when informational rents associated with regulation are taken into account; (ii) the extent of incentive correction, which expresses the divergence of pricing under the optimal mechanism from optimal pricing under complete information; (iii) the implementation of optimal regulation through a menu of linear contracts. Our findings are that, for fixed territory, strong economies of scale allow local exchange telecommunications to retain monopoly characteristics even when the (informational) costs of regulation are properly accounted for, the incentive correction term is small in magnitude, and that optimal regulation can be well approximated through relatively simple linear contracts.