A Model of Quota Prices in a Multispecies Fishery with “Choke” Species and Discarding

Environmental and Resource Economics - Using a two-stage optimisation model, we simulate the determination of market-clearing quota lease prices in a multispecies fishery. Assuming fixed...     

Overcoming data barriers in spatial agri-food systems analysis: A flexible imputation framework

Suppressions in public data severely limit the usefulness of spatial data and hinder research applications. In this context, data imputation is necessary to deal with suppressed values. We present and validate a flexible data imputation method that can aid in the completion of under-determined data systems. The validations use Monte Carlo and optimisation modelling techniques to recover suppressed data tables from the 2017 US Census of Agriculture. We then use econometric models to evaluate the accuracy of imputations from alternative models. Various metrics of forecast accuracy (i.e., MAPE, BIC, etc.) show the flexibility and capacity of this approach to accurately recover suppressed data. To illustrate the value of our method, we compare the livestock water withdrawal estimations with imputed data and suppressed data to show the bias in research applications when suppressions are simply dropped from analysis.     

Pollutant Trading with Transport Time Lags

Environmental and Resource Economics - Surface level ozone pollution imposes significant crop yield damages. However, the quantification has mainly involved chamber experiments, which may not be...     

Comparing Internet and phone survey mode effects across countries and research contexts*

We compare Internet and telephone survey responses across 27 European Union nations and two research contexts: one, a choice experiment of willingness to pay to avoid power outages, and the other, a public acceptance of energy infrastructure question. The various forms of survey mode effects and the challenges of survey mode choice are documented and developed in the context of statistical theory and an application to an economics survey. We find evidence that survey mode effects vary across research contexts, and to a lesser extent, across nations. We suggest that the degree of measurement bias may be varying between research contexts, for example based on the availability of a perceived socially correct response within a given context. Future survey-based research should evaluate the choice of survey mode in a context- and region-specific manner.     

A scaling limit for utility indifference prices in the discretised Bachelier model

Finance and Stochastics - We consider the discretised Bachelier model where hedging is done on a set of equidistant times. Exponential utility indifference prices are studied for path-dependent...     

Major government customers and loan contract terms

Review of Accounting Studies - We examine the relation between the presence of U.S. government as a major customer and a supplier firm’s loan contract terms, using major corporate customers...     

Owner-occupancy fraud and mortgage performance

We identify occupancy fraud—borrowers who misrepresent their occupancy status as owner-occupants rather than investors—in residential mortgage originations. Unlike previous work, we show that fraud was prevalent in originations not just during the housing bubble but also persists through more recent times. We also demonstrate that fraud is broad-based and appears in government-sponsored enterprise and bank portfolio loans, not just in private securitization; these fraudulent borrowers make up one third of the effective investor population. Occupancy frauds obtain credit at lower interest rates, suggesting a motivation for undertaking fraud. These fraudulent borrowers perform substantially worse than similar declared investors, defaulting at a 75% higher rate. We also provide evidence consistent with fraudulent borrowers’ defaults being more “strategic,” suggesting that this population poses a risk in the face of declining house prices.