An analysis of asymmetric demand response to price changes: The case of local telephone calls

Asymmetric demand responses to price changes are not an observable implication of classical demand theory, which predicts that consumers will react to a small price increase in much the same way as they do to a small price decrease. Yet applied researchers have long speculated that consumers are more sensitive to price increases than they are to price decreases. In addition, recent empirical studies generally support the theory of asymmetric demand responses. We construct a dynamic model based on data gathered from monthly telephone bills for 128 New York Telephone customers over a five-year period. Our results support the conclusion that customers react more quickly and strongly when prices go up than they do when prices go down.We would like to thank Manny Haas and Bernie Reddy for their comments and suggestions.     

美国地方政府创新的影响因素分析

本文研究了促进或妨碍地方政府管理创新的各项因素。研究结果表明,领导公信力既对地方政府创新的发起和实施起到了重要的作用,也是决定具体政府改革成败的重要因素;议会冲突对地方政府改革的成败不起关键作用;议会—行政机关关系的融洽有利于地方政府创新的成功开展。     

Through the eyes of gratitude

There are complex considerations at play when deciding what nurse should work with which patient. During the course of a relationship between a patient and a nurse, or a nurse and a patient's family, remarkable and life-changing interactions can occur. The relationship between Patrick Barnes, his family, and the nurses who cared for them, was the inspiration for the creation of the DAISY Foundation. The DAISY Award focuses attention on the specific behaviors administrators want to encourage to bring the organization's vision and values to life. DAISY stories, presented publicly, uplift all who hear them. We can all learn a lot from the Barnes family story by remembering the power of compassion, the power of gratitude, and the power of recognition.     

Simultaneous Estimation of Legal and Illegal Supply and Demand: The Case of Motion Pictures

Prior research into illegal goods has typically looked at one-way effects, such as illegal demand on legal demand. This research investigates a previously unexamined component of the market, illegal supply. The authors examine the supply and demand of legal goods and their illegal counterparts as a market system of four interdependent components. This research makes theoretical and empirical contributions by evaluating illegal supply in this system. Simultaneous equations estimate each market component on the others using data from the motion picture industry. The results find illegal supply has no effect on legal supply (movie screens), positive effects on illegal demand (piracy downloads), and some effect on legal demand (box office revenues). Timing effects highlight this: illegal supply has a positive effect on legal demand during a film’s opening week, but no effect post-launch. The other market components have positive effects on illegal supply (except legal supply, which is negative in the opening week). Additionally, illegal demand has a negative effect on legal demand during the opening week of release, but not in the subsequent weeks. This finding alleviates prior research tension as to whether piracy helps or hurts legal sales, as omitting illegal supply could result in biased estimates.     

Did Hayek have a monetary theory of business cycles?

Joseph Schumpeter, a careful reader of Hayek, categorized Hayek??s theory of economic cycles as non-monetary. Almost every other source, including Hayek himself, categorized the theory as monetary. The issue turns on the concept of causality being used. The question of what causality concept to apply to complex phenomena has substantive implications for economic theory. A simple concept of causality, appropriate to the study of some physical phenomena, will mislead when applied to complex phenomena. We provide examples of errors in analysis that follow from the wrong choice of a causal paradigm.     

Dynamic price dependence of Canadian and international art markets: an empirical analysis

Although the market for Canadian paintings is now of substantial magnitude, with several works having recently been sold for well over a million dollars, it remains true that with very few exceptions, the works of Canadian painters are bought and sold only in Canada and seem to be held only by Canadian collectors. This market can thus be viewed as largely local, and it is therefore not clear whether there should be any linkage between price movements for Canadian art and those for the mainstream international market in old master, impressionist, and modern art. This article investigates the presence and nature of such time series dependence econometrically, both in terms of long-term trends as reflected in the co-integrating relationship between Canadian and the international market, and in terms of short-run co-movements as represented in correlations. The possibility that the local market ??follows?? the international one is also considered through an analysis of Granger causality. For Canadian art prices, we use a new hedonic index that has been computed using an updated version of the dataset of Hodgson and Vorkink (Can J Econ 37:629?C655, 2004), while for the international prices, we use an index provided by Mei and Moses (Am Econ Rev 92:1656?C1668, 2002).     

What Do Bettors Want? Determinants of Pari‐Mutuel Betting Preference

A bstract .   This paper is an analysis of the demand for thoroughbred racetrack wagers, examining evidence that would support the existence of two types of bettors: the risk-averse informed bettor versus the uninformed bettor. Looking at 12 major racetracks over the fall of 2002, we undertake an empirical examination of the determinants of bettors' preferences for particular wagers on specific races. The goal is to try to determine what individual aspects of a race (conditions, surface, participants, etc.) will encourage increased wagering dollars. With the advent of simulcasting, the competition for the wagering dollar is fierce, as the bettor can choose from more than 100 races daily, each race offering numerous betting options. We find for most wagers that higher quality participants, larger and more competitive fields, and turf races increase betting volume while higher pari-mutuel takeout, poor track conditions, and other races run concurrently reduce volume. However, more competitive fields reduce betting volume in the show and trifecta pools. Optimal field size is determined to be between 10 and 12 betting interests. Overall, we find support for the existence of a significant share of risk-averse informed bettors.     

Do Casinos Cause Economic Growth?

A bstract .   Casino gambling is a popular form of entertainment and is purported to have positive effects on host economies. The industry surely affects local labor markets and tax revenues. However, there has been little evidence on the effects of casino gambling on state economic growth. This paper examines that relationship using Granger-causality analysis modified for use with panel data. Our results indicate that there is no Granger-causal relationship between real casino revenues and real per capita income at the state level. The results are based on annual data from 1991 to 2005. These findings contradict an earlier study that found that casino revenues Granger-cause economic growth, using quarterly data from 1991 to 1996. Possible explanations for the differences in short- and long-run effects are discussed.     

HOW DID UNCONVENTIONAL MONETARY POLICY AFFECT ECONOMIC FORECASTS?

We study how unconventional monetary policy announcements affected professional forecasters' predictions of bond rates, gross domestic product growth and inflation using data from the monthly survey by the Wall Street Journal. We find that unconventional monetary policy (UMP) announcements moved predicted bond rates in the direction the Fed intended. UMP announcements had differential impacts on forecasters' predictions; they also tended to move growth and inflation predictions in directions opposite those the Fed intended due to Fed information effects. A policy implication of our study is that the Fed should communicate economic projections to the public separately from monetary policy announcements to mitigate Fed information effects. (JEL E52, E58)