EVALUATING MEDICAL MALPRACTICE REFORMS

Which of the tort reforms enacted during the mid-1970s to alleviate the medical malpractice litigation crisis have succeeded? Under some circumstances, the frequency and disposition of claims may indicate how reforms affected key policy variables such as the number of injuries and costs of litigation. But potential pitfalls exist in using claims data to evaluate tort reforms. In this paper, we identify and discuss these problems, review recent findings, and offer guidance to improve policy analysis.     

Estimating the Volatility of Discrete Stock Prices

This paper introduces an estimator of stock price volatility that eliminates, at least asymptotically, the biases that are caused by the discreteness of observed stock prices. Assuming that the observed stock prices are continuously monitored, an estimator is constructed using the notion of how quickly the price changes rather than how much the price changes. It is shown that this estimator has desirable asymptotic properties, including consistency and asymptotic normality. Also, through a simulation study, the authors show that it outperforms natural estimators for the low- and middle-priced stocks. Furthermoret, he simulation study demonstratest hat the proposed estimator is robust to certain misspecifications in measuring the time between price changes.     

Technological and Regulatory Forces in the Developing Fusion of Financial-Services Competition

Product lines of traditionally heterogeneous financial institutions are rapidly fusing into a homogeneous blend. Institutions and market structures are reshaping themselves to lower the cost of serving customer demand for financial services. This paper contends that contemporary adaptations exploit scope economies rooted in technological change and deposit-insurance subsidies to innovative forms of risk-bearing. As they reorient work flows, financial firms are simultaneously restructuring their organizations to lower net burdens from government regulation. Alternative state and federal regulatory and legislative bodies compete vigorously for the regulatory business of developing institutional hybrids. Evolution of Federal Reserve policy toward “nonbank banks” exemplifies the process.     

Callable Bonds: A Risk-Reducing Signalling Mechanism

The theory of financial economics has failed to distinguish advantages of callable bonds from those of short-term debt. This paper shows that either type of borrowing can signal a firm's better prospects but that short-term debt does so at the cost of weakened risk-sharing with capital markets. By issuing either equity or long-term, non-callable debt, a firm with poor investment opportunities will not pool its prospects with those of a better firm. But equity produces superior risk-sharing. Perhaps this explains the almost complete absence of long-term, non-callable bonds from observed corporate capital structures.