COMPETITIVE PRICING AND EFFICIENCY IN SEARCH EQUILIBRIUM*

We consolidate and generalize some results on price determination and efficiency in search equilibrium. Extending models by Rubinstein and Wolinsky and by Gale, heterogeneous buyers and sellers meet according to a general matching technology and prices are determined by a general bargaining condition. When the discount rate r and search costs converge to 0, we show that prices in all exchanges are the same and equal the competitive, market clearing, price. Given positive search costs, efficiency obtains iff bargaining satisfies Hosios' condition and r=0. When prices are set by third‐party market makers, however, we show that search equilibrium is necessarily efficient.     

EFFICIENCY AND BARGAINING POWER IN THE INTERBANK LOAN MARKET

Using detailed transactions‐level data on interbank loans, we examine the efficiency of an overnight interbank lending market and the bargaining power of its participants. Our analysis relies on the equilibrium concept of the core, which imposes a set of no‐arbitrage conditions on trades in the market. For Canada's Large Value Transfer System, we show that although the market is fairly efficient, systemic inefficiency persists throughout our sample. The level of inefficiency matches distinct phases of both the Bank of Canada's operations as well as phases of the 2007–8 financial crisis. We find that bargaining power tilted sharply toward borrowers as the financial crisis progressed and (surprisingly) toward riskier borrowers.     

EFFICIENCY AND LABOR MARKET DYNAMICS IN A MODEL OF LABOR SELECTION

This article characterizes efficient labor market allocations in a labor selection model. The model's crucial aspect is cross‐sectional heterogeneity for new job contacts, which leads to an endogenous selection threshold for new hires. With cross‐sectional dispersion calibrated to microeconomic data, 40% of empirically relevant fluctuations in the job‐finding rate arise, which contrasts with results in an efficient search and matching economy. The efficient selection model's results hold in partial and general equilibrium, as well as with sequential search.     

BUSINESS CYCLES IN THE EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF LABOR MARKET SEARCH AND SELF‐INSURANCE*

I introduce risk‐aversion, labor‐leisure choice, capital, individual productivity shocks, and market incompleteness to the standard model of labor search and matching and investigate the model’s cyclical properties. I find that the model can generate the observed large volatility of unemployment and vacancies with a reasonable replacement rate of unemployment insurance benefits of 64%. Labor‐leisure choice plays a crucial role through additional utility from leisure when unemployed and further amplification from adjustments of hours worked. On the other hand, the borrowing constraint or individual productivity shocks do not significantly affect the cyclical properties of unemployment and vacancies.     

GENDER DISCRIMINATION ESTIMATION IN A SEARCH MODEL WITH MATCHING AND BARGAINING*

This article develops a search model of the labor market with matching, bargaining, and employers' taste discrimination in which—under necessary but standard distributional assumption—it is possible to separately identify gender discrimination and unobserved productivity differences. The equilibrium shows that both prejudiced and unprejudiced employers wage discriminate. Maximum likelihood estimates on CPS data indicate that half of the employers are prejudiced, average female productivity is 6.5% lower, and two‐third of the gender earning differential may be explained by prejudice. An affirmative action policy is implemented resulting in a redistribution of welfare from men to women at no cost for employers' welfare.     

AN EMPIRICAL STATIONARY EQUILIBRIUM SEARCH MODEL OF THE HOUSING MARKET*

This article specifies and estimates a computationally tractable stationary equilibrium model of the housing market. The model is rich and incorporates many of its unique features: buyers’ and sellers’ simultaneous search behavior, heterogeneity in their motivation to trade, transaction costs, a trading mechanism with posting prices and bargaining, and the availability of an exogenous advertising technology that induces endogenous matching. Estimation uses Maximum Likelihood methods and Multiple Listing Services data. The estimated model is used to simulate housing market outcomes when (a) the amount of information displayed on housing listings increases and (b) real estate agent’s commission rates change.     

COMPETITIVE SEARCH,EFFICIENCY, AND MULTIWORKER FIRMS*

I study competitive search equilibrium in an environment where firms operate a decreasing‐returns production technology and hire multiple workers simultaneously. Firms post wages, possibly several of them. The equilibrium can feature wage dispersion even though all firms and workers are ex ante identical. Unlike the benchmark where firms hire a single worker, hiring is constrained inefficient. Efficiency requires that firms commit to the number of hires, pay all applicants, or pay wages that depend on the number of applicants. Under wage‐posting, the inefficiency is highest at intermediate levels of labor market tightness.     

COMPENSATION FOR QUALITY DIFFERENCE IN A SEARCH MODEL OF MONEY*

We study an economy in which there is always double coincidence of wants, agents have perfect information about qualities of goods, and there are no transaction costs. The hold‐up problem arises because efforts invested in improving quality prior to search may not be compensated in the market. Situations in which barter fails to motivate quality improvement are identified. With money, however, the extra effort in quality improvement will be compensated when high‐quality good producers trade with agents holding both the low‐quality good and money. Injection of money can induce almost all agents to produce the high‐quality good.     

WEALTH AS A SIGNAL IN THE SEARCH MODEL OF MONEY*

This article investigates the possibility that wealth (holdings of money) serves as a signal of the ability to produce high‐quality products for agents who cannot directly observe the quality of the products. A producer's wealth may advertise past success in selling products to agents who knew the producer's ability and thus signal its ability. This analysis shows that such signaling effects may arise in equilibrium and may lead to more unequal distributions of wealth and lower welfare than would otherwise arise.     

MARKET POWER,PRICE ADJUSTMENT,AND INFLATION*

We study a monetary search economy in which endogenous fluctuations in market power driven by changes in consumers' search intensity determine the extent of price adjustment to movements in productivity and the money growth rate. A calibrated version of the economy exhibits countercyclical fluctuations in markups and is consistent with the observed incomplete response of nominal prices to cost movements associated with productivity fluctuations and to changes in the money growth rate. Furthermore, a higher average rate of inflation results in a lower average markup and increases the sensitivity of prices to fluctuations in either productivity or money growth.     

MONEY AND BANKING IN SEARCH EQUILIBRIUM*

We develop a new theory of money and banking based on the old story in which goldsmiths start accepting deposits for safe keeping, then their liabilities begin circulating as media of exchange, then they begin making loans. We first discuss the history. We then present a model where agents can open bank accounts and write checks. The equilibrium means of payment may be cash, checks, or both. Sometimes multiple equilibria exist. Introducing banks increases the set of parameters for which money is valued–thus, money and banking are complements. We also derive a microfounded version of the usual money multiplier.     

EFFICIENCY OF THE TAIWAN STOCK MARKET*

This study uses two popular technical trading rules to assess whether the gradual liberalization of Taiwan's securities markets has improved the efficiency of its stock market. The results show that the two rules have considerable predictive power for 1983–1990, they become less predictive for 1991–1997, and they cannot predict the market for 1998–2005. These results indicate that the efficiency of Taiwan stock market has been greatly enhanced by the liberalization measures implemented over the last 20 years.     

REVERSE DISCRIMINATION AND EFFICIENCY IN EDUCATION*

This article shows that reverse discrimination policies can find a justification purely on efficiency grounds. We study the optimal provision of education when households belong to different groups, differing in the distribution of the potential to benefit from education among individuals, which is private information. The main result is that high‐potential individuals from groups with relatively few high‐potential individuals should receive more education than otherwise identical individuals from groups with a more favorable distribution of these benefits.     

A SECURITIES TRANSACTIONS TAX AND CAPITAL MARKET EFFICIENCY

This paper revisits the debate on the securities transaction tax (STT). The analysis uses Tobin's (1984) taxonomy of financial market efficiency to examine the potential effects of such a tax and concludes that a STT probably would not enhance the overall functioning of financial markets.     

信息揭示与资本市场效率-信息有效与配置有效

基于不同的治理战略,控股股东和其他大股东对信息披露的不同方面和不同内容具有不同的选择偏好。具体而言,控股股东往往倾向于让信息披露看起来较为可靠和及时,以便迷惑市场和广大中小投资者;同时有意降低信息披露的相关性,使投资者缺乏相关的信息作出适当而有效的反应。相反,其他大股东可能阻碍控股股东操控信息披露,对信息披露的可靠性和及时性产生"负面作用",同时倾向于要求在年报中披露更多更加相关的信息。     

THE EFFECTS OF TAXES ON LABOUR IN A DYNAMIC EFFICIENCY WAGE MODEL*

This paper studies the impact of wage and employment taxes in an intertemporal efficiency wage model. Cases with fixed, linear and quadratic adjustment costs associated with job creation are considered. In general, the model shows that an increase in the employment tax leads to an increase in unemployment, reducing job creation, and has ambiguous effect on wages; whereas an increase in the wage tax reduces wages and has ambiguous impact on unemployment and job creation.