Output gaps,inflation and financial cycles in the UK

Empirical Economics - This paper aims at constructing potential output and output gap measures for the UK which are pinned down by macroeconomic relationships as well as financial indicators. The...     

Controlling Sellers Who Provide Advice: Regulation and Competition*

A monopoly seller advising buyers about which of two goods fits their needs may be tempted to recommend the higher margin good. For the seller to collect information about a buyer’s needs and provide truthful advice, the profits from selling both goods must be similar enough, i.e., within an implementability cone. The optimal regulation controls pricing distortions and information-collection incentives separately via price regulation and fixed rewards respectively. This no longer holds when the seller has private information about costs as both problems interact. We study whether competition and the threat by buyers to switch sellers can substitute for regulation.     

The (real) need for a human touch: testing a human–machine hybrid topic classification workflow on a New York Times corpus

Quality & Quantity - The classification of the items of ever-increasing textual databases has become an important goal for a number of research groups active in the field of computational...     

Intensive Board Monitoring,Investor Protection and Segment Disclosure Quality: Evidence from EU

Abstract

This study examined the association between intensive board monitoring (IBM) and segment disclosure quality (SDQ). It also investigated whether this association can be moderated by firm's home country investor protection (IP) level. Based on a panel of 271 non-financial European Union (EU) listed corporations covering the 2007–2012 period, this study estimated two multiple regression models including industry and year fixed effects. We found evidence that the segment disclosure quality is higher when a majority of outside directors serve on monitoring committees. We, also, found that the positive association between IBM and SDQ is more pronounced for firms in a weak IP environment and less pronounced for firms in a strong IP environment. Thus, we provided evidence in favor of a substitutive relationship between IBM and IP level with respect to their association with SDQ. Our findings are evidenced by several robustness tests.     

Multi-destination firms and the impact of exchange-rate risk on trade

Based on a French firm-level database that combines information on balance-sheet and destination-specific export information over the period 1995–2009, we document a new stylized fact related to the heterogeneous reaction of exporters to RER volatility: we show that strongly multi-destination firms tend to reduce significantly more their exports to a destination that faces higher exchange-rate volatility. We also show that, following an exchange-rate volatility shock in a given country, strongly multi-destination firms increase exports to all other destinations served. This specific behavior of multi-destination firms has significant aggregate implications. First, the bilateral aggregate impact is increasingly negative with the weight of multi-destination firms in total exports towards the considered destination. Second, the reallocation behavior of large, multi-destination firms ultimately translates into stable total French exports (summed over all destinations).     

Narratives of technology consumption in the face of marketplace discrimination

This study presents a phenomenological inquiry into the lived experiences of discriminated consumers to understand how they liberate themselves from offline marketplace discrimination. We explore the critical role that information technology plays to facilitate this process, revealing how discriminated consumers use technology to prepare for battle offline, temporarily seek refuge online, and withdraw permanently online. Our findings have implications to the technology consumption literature by highlighting how discriminated consumers may adopt technological consumption practices that allow them to successfully navigate the marketplace.     

Central Bank Communication in a Low Interest Rate Environment

When interest rates are low, or negative, central banks must increasingly rely on effective communication to ease the stance of monetary policy. Empirical evidence suggests that the ECB’s forward guidance, consisting of a carefully expounded series of expectations involving both key policy rates and asset purchases, has been successful in (i) reducing the sensitivity of forward rates to macroeconomic news, (ii) insulating euro area financial conditions from external shocks and (iii) providing additional monetary policy accommodation at a time when the room for cuts in key policy rates has been very limited. At the same time, a central bank cannot always be sure how its forward guidance works and much of the challenge arises from the interaction between central banks and financial markets. In this environment, and for forward guidance to be credible and effective, policymakers need to be clear about their reaction function, regularly align their policy expectations with the evolving assessment of the state of the economy and its likely evolution, and act accordingly.     

Mercantilism and bureaucratic modernization in early eighteenth‐century France

French mercantilism is generally associated with absolutist policy‐making subject to capture by rent‐seeking interests. This article investigates how the Bureau du Commerce, a small state agency in charge of commerce and the supply side, handed out rents and privileges to private entrepreneurs. We coded how the Bureau investigated and decided all 267 voluntary submissions received between 1724 and 1744. It is shown that the Bureau’s formal, rule‐based decision‐making process could actually differentiate between alternate policy aims and target them consistently over time, with more or less powerful sets of rents. From this, a hierarchy of revealed policy preferences is derived. First comes technical innovation and diffusion, then local economic development; import substitution is only in the third position, followed by consumers’ welfare. Lastly, and in contrast to a long line of authors, it is shown that the production of luxury goods was not a significant or valued objective.     

以企业利润为中心的维修

介绍以利润为中心的维修管理方法,论述维修费用和投资结果两者之间的关系.说明维修管理对企业获取最大利润的方法.采用一个基于现代维修科技,调动人员积极性的维修管理的系统方法.提出维修资源和投资两者之间的直接和间接关系.应用所描述和提出的方法与手段,能为企业带来较大利润.任何一个企业的基本任务都是要获得长期的收益.从最简化的技术观点,利润可理解为某个时期企业经营活动的费用和收入之间的差额.本文的目的是要说明有形资产实行以利润为中心的维修的任务,也就是说,恰当的维修管理能为企业贡献长期的最大的利润.