A comparison of different trading protocols in an agent-based market

We compare price dynamics of different market protocols (batch auction, continuous double auction and dealership) in an agent-based artificial exchange. In order to distinguish the effects of market architectures alone, we use a controlled environment where allocative and informational issues are neglected and agents do not optimize or learn. Hence, we rule out the possibility that the behavior of traders drives the price dynamics. Aiming to compare price stability and execution quality in broad sense, we analyze standard deviation, excess kurtosis, tail exponent of returns, volume, perceived gain by traders and bid-ask spread. Overall, a dealership market appears to be the best candidate, generating low volume and volatility, virtually no excess kurtosis and high perceived gain.     

Inferior factor in Cournot oligopoly revisited

We reconsider the recent work by Okuguchi (J Econ 101:125–131, 2010) on (possibly asymmetric) Cournotian firms with two production factors, one being inferior for each firm. It is shown there that an increase in the price of the inferior factor does raise the equilibrium industry output. In addition of providing a simpler and more rigorous proof of that result, we generalize it to the case of technologies with $s\ge 2$ factors and also allow some firms not to use the inferior one.     

Multiple equilibria and global indeterminacy in an endogenous growth model with congestible public goods

This paper extends the findings in Chen and Lee (2007) to show that the use of congestible public goods can produce both local and global indeterminacy in a two‐sector endogenous growth model with productive public services financed by income taxation. Basically, we observe the effects on growth rates by changing parameters, and compare the case of a single steady‐state with the emergence of dual steady‐states, identifying the feasible ways to avoid a possible low‐growth poverty trap. The novelty of our analysis is to detect the presence of global indeterminacy by making use of the Bogdanov‐Takens bifurcation theorem. Some examples are also provided to achieve concrete policy implications.     

Productivity,innovation strategies and industrial relations in SMEs. Empirical evidence for a local production system in northern Italy

The paper aims to provide an original contribution to evaluating several kinds of relations between four areas of innovation activities – training, technology, organization, ICT (information and communication technologies) – and industrial relations and firm’s economic performance. Quantitative evidence for a SME‐based local production system is provided by exploiting two datasets: the first is derived from a direct survey carried out in 2005 collecting data on innovations, labour flexibility and industrial relations; the second is represented by a panel of official balance sheets data for the period 1998–2004. The analysis is divided in two consequential parts. We first examine the drivers of different innovation strategies and subsequently we exploit innovation indicators as potential drivers of firm’s productivity. The results show that training activities and organizational changes have strong links with many industrial relations indicators, thus emerging as industrial relations driven innovations. On the contrary, ICT and technological innovation seem to be more influenced by firms’ past performances than by industrial relations. The analysis on labour productivity drivers shows that training activities are the most relevant factors; then, ranked consequently, technological innovation, organisational innovations and, finally, ICT also appear to impact on productivity levels. It is worth noting that the role of ICT emerges more robustly when endogeneity is specifically addressed. Finally, the role of firm size seems here to be overshadowed by other drivers.     

A dynamic model of R&D competition

This study considers a dynamic model of R&D competition in a situation of no uncertainty with identical firms in a perfect foresight. We are going to find out about the effects of firms' absorptive capacity on R&D strategies in the presence of technological spillovers. The conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a feedback–Nash equilibrium on firms' R&D expense will be also discussed. Numerical simulations will show as the introduction of the absorptive capacity reduces the impact of spillovers degree on firms' R&D strategies.     

Sustainable Power Generation in Europe: A Panel Data Analysis of the Effects of Market and Environmental Regulations

Environmental and Resource Economics - Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have become increasingly more pressing environmental concerns in European policy agenda. Environmental energy...     

Model Uncertainty, Optimal Monetary Policy and the Preferences of the Fed

Monetary policy in the US is characterized by a substantial degree of inertia. While in principle this may well be the outcome of an optimizing central bank behaviour, the ability of any derived policy rule to match the data relies on so large weights for interest rate smoothing into policy makers' preferences as to be theoretically flawed. In this paper we investigate whether such a puzzle can be interpreted as resulting from the concern of monetary authorities for potential misspecifications of the macroeconomic dynamics. Accordingly, we propose a novel thick modelling approach that incorporates model uncertainty into the identification of central bank's preferences. The thick robust policy rule shows the kind of smoothness observed in the data without resorting to implausible values for the preference parameters.     

The spatial sorting and matching of skills and firms

Abstract .  In this paper we make use of a matched employer-employee database for Italy to look at the spatial distribution of wages. Using this rich database we aim to open up the black box of agglomeration economies exploiting the micro dimension of interaction among economic agents, both individuals and firms. We provide evidence that firm size and, especially, skills are sorted across space and account for a large portion of the spatial wage variation. Our data also support the assortative matching hypothesis, which we show not to be driven by co-location of good workers and firms. Finally, we point out that assortative matching is negatively related to local market size.     

Identification and dimension of the NAIRU

In this paper, we have re-examined the identification of the NAIRU and presented a well-defined reduced form for analysing the equilibrium unemployment rate, using a cointegrated VAR model. We have stated that the NAIRU estimates using the conventional reduced form (or Phillips curve) models are misleading since the natural rate of unemployment cannot be considered as a fixed point calling for the ceteris paribus assumption for all the data involved. This implies that the NAIRU estimates are unable to provide valuable information on the labour market status.     

Revisiting Savage in a conditional world

Summary. I present an axiomatization of subjective expected utility and Bayesian updating in a conditional decision problem. This result improves our understanding of the Bayesian standard from two perspectives: 1) it uses a set of axioms which are weak and intuitive; 2) it provides a formal proof to results on the relation between dynamic consistency, expected utility and Bayesian updating which have never been explicitly proved in a fully subjective framework. Received: December 1, 2000; revised version: February 26, 2001