Convergent Validity of Revealed and Stated Recreation Behavior with Quality Change: A Comparison of Multiple and Single Site Demands

We consider the convergent validity of several demand models using beach recreation data. Two models employ multiple site data: a count data demand system model and the Kuhn–Tucker demand system model. We explore the role of existing variation in beach width in explaining trip choices, and analyze a hypothetical 100 foot increase in beach width. We compare these models to a single equation model where we jointly estimate revealed and stated preference trip data, and focus on a hypothetical scenario considering a 100 foot increase in beach width. In each case we develop estimates of the change in beach visits and the welfare impacts from the increase in width. The trip change estimates from two of the three models are similar and convergent valid, though the willingness to pay estimates differ in magnitude.     

Shareholder Wealth Responses to Bankruptcy Filing Announcements under the Chandler and Reform Acts

This paper examines shareholder wealth responses to bankruptcy filing announcements between 1974 and 1989 to draw inferences about the impact of the adoption of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. The authors find that post-Reform Act announcements are associated with more negative pre-filing and announcement period returns to shareholders. Unlike prior research, this study finds that large firms and NYSE-listed firms experience more negative returns. It also finds that the market can discriminate between firms that are ultimately worthless and those that may retain some value for shareholders.     

An Analysis of Bond Investment Company Initial Public Offerings: Past and Present

In this study, we investigate the return behavior of bond investment company initial public offerings (IPOs). Samples of these IPOs collected for the periods 1973–1976 and 1986–1987 exhibited negative returns to investors. The findings are in contrast to those usually reported for IPOs but are consistent with those recently reported for equity investment company IPOs.     

The political economy of agrarian reform in Yucatán, Mexico

Fundamental land tenure reform in Yucatán has been characterized by declining productivity in the henequén ejidos (collectives), and the Banco Rural — which supervises and finances the ejidos — has sustained chronic, burgeoning operational losses. Several related causes account for the economic failure of the Reforma Agraria: (1) the disruption of the spatial unity and organizational integrity of the expropriated agroindustrial estates, (2) the perverse incentive structure facing the ejidatarios, the presumed ‘owners’ of the collective ejidos, (3) the debilitating corruption that has characterized the official bank's management of the ejidos, (4) the primacy of the federal government's and the official party's political/ social goals in the state over economic/market considerations.     

A COMPARISON OF INTERVENTION AND RESIDUAL ANALYSIS

By comparing intervention and residual analysis abnormal return metrics, this study illustrates the impact that cross-sectional return dependencies can have on empirical tests of the semi-strong form of the efficient market hypothesis. The source of the dependencies encountered in this study appears to be the result of nine value altering information releases (e.g., events) that occurred in a seven-month period in 1982. For one sample of bank equity returns, the abnormal return metrics obtained with residual analysis are generally smaller than those obtained with intervention analysis. In addition, the intervention analysis results suggest that two of the nine events led to significant shifts in the banks' systematic risk. These findings suggest that tests of the semi-strong form of the efficient market hypothesis conducted with a less-than randomly constructed sample need to examine the restrictions that accompany the specification of an expected return metric.     

Immigration, Race, and Labor: Unionization and Wages in the Canadian Labor Market

In Canada, most racial minorities have lower rates of unionization than do members of the majority workforce. Data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics ( N = 32,634) show that racial minority immigrants assimilate into unionization over time. However, unionization reduces net minority wage disadvantages only slightly. Union race relations policies should place more emphasis on collective bargaining as well as on unionization.     

Imperfect common knowledge and the information value of prices

Summary. When economic agents have diverse private information on the fundamentals of the economy, prices may serve as a poor aggregator of this private information. We examine the information value of prices in a monopolistic competition setting that has become standard in the New Keynesian macroeconomics literature. We show that public information has a disproportionate effect on agents’ decisions, crowds out private information, and thereby has the potential to degrade the information value of prices. This effect is strongest in an economy with keen price competition. Monetary policy must rely on less informative signals of the underlying cost conditions.Received: 6 November 2003, Revised: 19 November 2004 JEL Classification Numbers: E31, E32, E58.This paper supersedes the discussion in the first half of our longer paper that circulated under the title “Public and Private Information in Monetary Policy Models”. We thank Andy Filardo, Marvin Goodfriend, Nobu Kiyotaki, John Moore, Stephen Morris and Lars Svensson for advice and comments at various stages of the project, and to Herakles Polemarchakis, Roko Aliprantis and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and guidance. The views are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the BIS. The second author acknowledges support from the U.K. ESRC under grant RES 000220450. Correspondence to: H.S. Shin