Harmful Addiction

We construct an infinite horizon model of harmful addiction. Consumption is compulsive if it differs from what the individual would have chosen had commitment been available. A good is addictive if its consumption leads to more compulsive consumption of the same good. We analyse the welfare implications of drug policies and find that taxes on drugs decrease welfare while prohibitive policies may increase welfare. We also analyse the agent's demand for voluntary commitment ("rehab"). For appropriate parameters, the model predicts a cycle of addiction where the agent periodically checks into rehab. Between these visits his drug consumption increases each period.     

Information and the persistence of private-order contract enforcement institutions: An experimental analysis

We study an experimental market in which some sellers are prone to moral hazard, and in which a private-order contract enforcement institution exists that can mediate trade and prevent sellers from reneging on their contractual obligations. Using the institution to resolve the moral-hazard problem is costly. We demonstrate that in this market, the utilization of the private-order contract enforcement institution may make public and private market signals uninformative and inhibit learning. We study whether this potential information externality can limit adaptation away from the private-order institution when it is efficient to do so. Consistent with theory, we find inefficient persistence when the institution is used, but by contrast, efficient adaptation in other situations. Providing information to individuals who are using the private-order institution allows them to partially adapt.     

Are securitised real estate markets efficient?: New international evidence based on an improved automatic Portmanteau test

We re-examine the efficiency of real estate markets based on the Escanciano-Lobato (2009) autocorrelation test which we improved by means of wild bootstrapping. Through Monte Carlo simulation, we find that the wild bootstrap-based autocorrelation test has very good performance even in small samples. We apply the improved test to examine the efficiency of 14 international securitized real estate markets—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States. Our results show that only six of these markets—Australia, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States are efficient while the rest are inefficient. We also find that the degree of efficiency or inefficiency of each of these markets varies considerably across time. These findings indicate that real estate markets are relatively less efficient as compared to stock and bond markets in general and may also offer an explanation as to why existing studies on real estate market efficiency have mixed results.     

GROWTH, R&D AND WELFARE: THE ROLE OF PUBLIC POLICY

This paper analyzes the normative side of an R&D growth model in which market structure and growth are jointly determined in the equilibrium of a one‐sector economy under monopolistic competition. We find that a distortion in the allocation of R&D, namely the presence of technological spillovers between firms, generates two market failures: insufficient growth and excessive entry of firms. We show that this result is driven by the interplay between market structure and growth. A simple tax/subsidy scheme to support the efficient solution is proposed.     

The efficiency of competitive equilibria in insurance markets with asymmetric information

This paper addresses the relationship between competitive equilibria and efficient allocations in an insurance market with asymmetric information. Using the definition of second-best efficiency proposed by Harris and Townsend (1981) for environments characterized by informational assmmetry, the efficiency properties of several proposed market equilibria are examined. We find an analogue to the First Optimality Theorem: A Miyazaki-Wilson equilibrium always results in a second best allocation.     

Should environmental R&D be prioritized?

An innovator may not be able to capture the full social benefit of her innovation and, therefore, governments support private R&D through various measures. We compare a market good innovation—to develop a more efficient technology to produce a standard market good—with an environmental innovation—to develop a more efficient abatement technology—that has the same potential to increase the social surplus. In the first-best outcome, which can be achieved by offering an R&D subsidy and a diffusion subsidy, the R&D subsidy should be greatest for an environmental innovation, whereas the diffusion subsidy should be greatest for a market good innovation. The ranking of the two types of subsidies reflects that the appropriability problem is greater for an environmental innovation than for a market good innovation.     

The impact of international information disclosure requirements on market discipline

Financial regulators are challenged with finding the most efficient and effective ways to monitor banks given an expanding and complex international financial system. Market discipline has grown in importance as a way to discourage banks from taking on unnecessary risk. One of the main drivers of market discipline is information disclosure. While the literature on market discipline is expansive, there are no known studies on the impact of individual information disclosure requirements on market discipline. Our study investigates which specific disclosure requirements influence financial investors to discipline banks and which do not. We find that information disclosure requirements primarily reduce or have no impact on market discipline practices.     

Community-Based Tradable Permits for Localized Pollution

This paper considers the assignment of tradable permits—representing property rights of an environmental good—to community members who are harmed by pollution generated by firms. These community members can in turn sell permits to polluters according to their personal preferences. For a special case with a sole household, market transactions between the household and polluters achieve an efficient pollution level. However, for a group of households, the decentralized market solution fails to yield social efficiency because of competitive consumption of the environmental goods. We design a revenue-sharing mechanism akin to unitization, under which market transactions also achieve efficient resource allocation. Importantly, in some cases, efficiency can be achieved even when regulators are ignorant of the private valuation of the environmental good.     

Competitive behavior in market games: Evidence and theory

We explore whether competitive outcomes arise in an experimental implementation of a market game, introduced by Shubik (1973) [21]. Market games obtain Pareto inferior (strict) Nash equilibria, in which some or possibly all markets are closed. We find that subjects do not coordinate on autarkic Nash equilibria, but favor more efficient Nash equilibria in which all markets are open. As the number of subjects participating in the market game increases, the Nash equilibrium they achieve approximates the associated competitive equilibrium of the underlying economy. Motivated by these findings, we provide a theoretical argument for why evolutionary forces can lead to competitive outcomes in market games.     

The influence of investment experience on market prices: laboratory evidence

We run laboratory experiments to analyze the impact of prior investment experience on price efficiency in asset markets. Before subjects enter the asset market they gain either no, positive, or negative investment experience in an investment game. To get a comprehensive picture about the role of experience we implement two asset market designs. One is prone to inefficient pricing, exhibiting bubble and crash patterns, while the other exhibits efficient pricing. We find that (i) both, positive and negative, experience gained in the investment game lead to efficient pricing in both market settings. Further, we show that (ii) the experience effect dominates potential effects triggered by positive and negative sentiment generated by the investment game. We conjecture that experiencing changing price paths in the investment game can create a higher sensibility on changing fundamentals (through higher salience) among subjects in the subsequently run asset market.     

Anti-corruption campaign in China: good news or bad news for firm value?

This article investigates the effects of an anti-corruption campaign on firm value by testing market reactions to the investigation of top local officials during the recent anti-corruption campaign in China. We find that the anti-corruption events are more likely to be bad news for the market values of local state-owned enterprises (SOEs) but good news for the market values of non-SOEs less dependent on political connections. Besides, anti-corruption events are also more likely to be bad news for firms in regulated industries or low-marketization regions but good news for firms in nonregulated industries or high-marketization regions.     

Is the efficient market hypothesis day-of-the-week dependent? Evidence from the banking sector

In this article, we propose a new hypothesis: that the efficient market hypothesis is day-of-the-week-dependent. We apply the test to firms belonging to the banking sector and listed on the NYSE. We find significant evidence that the efficient market hypothesis is day-of-the-week-dependent. Overall, for only 62% of firms, the unit root null hypothesis is rejected on all the five trading days. We also discover that when investors do not account for unit root properties in devising trading strategies, they obtain spurious profits.     

Durability choice with differentiated products

In a two-period setting we explore the impact of a related non-durable good or service on a monopolists’ choice of product durability. We show that a renting firm will provide the social efficient cost-minimizing durability independent of the related non-durable product. Thus Swan’s [Swan, P., 1970. Durability of consumption goods. American Economic Review 60, 884–894; Swan, P., 1971. The durability of goods and the regulation of monopoly. Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2, 347–357] market independence result can be extended to include durable goods renters that manufacture related non-durables. This finding, however, does not extend to sales markets. With sales, the monopolist will practice planned obsolescence (manufacture goods with uneconomically short lives). We find that planned obsolescence is maximized when the related output is highly complementary with the durable good. This indicates that in durable products markets, such as the electronics industry, public policies that encourage the adoption of complements for the durable may well lead to a less efficient durability choice.     

Price Competition and Product Differentiation When Consumers Care for the Environment

Increasing environmental awareness may affect the pleasure of consuming a good for which an environment friendly substitute is available. In this paper, we investigate the market implication of product differentiation when customers are concerned about environmental aspects of the good. We use the spatial duopoly model to determine how environmental concern affects prices, product characteristics and market shares of the competing firms. Our analysis is based on a two-stage game, where at the first stage each firm chooses the characteristic of its product. At the second stage, each firm chooses its price. Equilibrium prices and market shares are affected by consumer awareness of the environment and by the higher costs for producing those goods. As for the Nash equilibria in the characteristics, we find three equilibria depending on the parameter constellation. In order to find out whether the market functions in an optimal way, we determine the choice of environmental characteristics by a welfare maximizing authority. The objective of the paper is to understand the environmental quality choices facing firms and to provide policies that would align private choices with the social optimum.JEL classifications: L11, Q38, H23     

Insider trading with public and shared information

We study the impact of public information and shared information on traders' trading behavior in the context of Kyle's (1985) speculative market. We suppose that there are four types of traders in our model: one insider, M outsiders, liquidity traders, and market makers. We explicitly describe the unique linear Nash equilibrium and find that public information harms the insider but benefits the outsiders and noise traders. Also, the market is more efficient because of the existence of public information.     

Heterogeneity of southern countries and southern intellectual property rights policy

Abstract.  We develop a model with one innovating northern firm and heterogeneous southern firms that compete in a final product market. We assume southern firms differ in their ability to adapt technology and study southern incentives to protect intellectual property rights. We find that, in a non-cooperative equilibrium, governments resist IPR protection, but collectively southern countries benefit from some protection. We show that, in general, countries with more efficient firms prefer higher collective IPR protection than those with less efficient firms. Given the aggregate level of IPR protection, it is more efficient if the more efficient countries have weaker IPR protection.     

The clean development mechanism versus international permit trading: The effect on technological change

The clean development mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol may induce technological change in developing countries. As an alternative to the clean development mechanism regime, developing countries may accept a (generous) cap on their own emissions, allow domestic producers to invest in new efficient technologies, and sell the excess emission permits on the international permit market. The purpose of this article is to show how the gains from investment, and hence the incentive to invest in new technology in developing countries, differ between the two alternative regimes. We show that the difference in the gains from investment depends on whether the producers in developing countries face competitive or noncompetitive output markets, whether the investment affects fixed or variable production costs, and whether producers can reduce emissions through means other than investing in new technology.     

Learning or lock-in: Optimal technology policies to support mitigation

We investigate conditions that amplify market failures in energy innovations, and suggest optimal policy instruments to address them. Using an intertemporal general equilibrium model we show that ‘small’ market imperfections may trigger a several decades lasting dominance of an incumbent energy technology over a dynamically more efficient competitor, given that the technologies are very good substitutes. Such a ‘lock-in’ into an inferior technology causes significantly higher welfare losses than market failure alone, notably under ambitious mitigation targets. More than other innovative industries, energy markets are prone to these lock-ins because electricity from different technologies is an almost perfect substitute. To guide government intervention, we compare welfare-maximizing technology policies including subsidies, quotas, and taxes with regard to their efficiency, effectivity, and robustness. Technology quotas and feed-in-tariffs turn out to be only insignificantly less efficient than first-best subsidies and seem to be more robust against small perturbations.     

Competitive Permit Markets and Vertical Structures: The Relevance of Imperfectly Competitive Eco‐Industries

Permit markets lead polluting firms to purchase abatement goods from an eco‐industry which is often concentrated. This paper studies the consequences of this sort of imperfectly competitive eco‐industry on the equilibrium choices of the competitive polluting firms. It then characterizes the second‐best pollution cap. By comparing this situation to one of perfect competition, we show that Cournot competition on the abatement good market contributes not only to a nonoptimal level of emission reduction but also to a higher permit price, which reduces the production level. These distortions increase with market power, measured by the margin taken by the noncompetitive firms, and suggest a second‐best larger pollution cap.