A Treatment Effect Method for Merger Analysis with an Application to Parking Prices in Paris

We propose a method of building control groups for retrospective merger evaluation. The procedure involves two parameters: a distance or radius, and an ‘order of exposure’ reflecting the notion that a merger can affect an outlet in a more or less direct way. We implement the method of estimating the price effect of a merger in the Paris parking market and illustrate the consequences of including indirectly exposed outlets in the control group. The methodology applies to any industry with spatial competition and allows one to check the sensitivity of the results to the choice of the control group.     

Patience and time consistency in collective decisions

We present experimental evidence regarding individual and group decisions over time. Static and longitudinal methods are combined to test four conditions on time preferences: impatience, stationarity, age independence, and dynamic consistency. Decision making in groups should favor coordination via communication about voting intentions. We find that individuals are neither patient nor consistent, that groups are both patient and highly consistent, and that information exchange between participants helps groups converge to stable decisions. Finally we provide additional evidence showing that our results are driven by the specific role of groups and not by either repeated choices or individual preferences when choosing for other subjects.     

Bias of distance functions estimates and Primont and Primont’s homotheticity test

The question of whether a technology exhibits particular properties such as radial input or output homotheticity is a crucial one for a producer since it should strongly impact on its reactions to market changes. Primont and Primont (Econ Lett 45:191–195, 1994) established that it can be tested using only weak assumptions. They further used their results to test for input homotheticity of an educational production technology (Primont and Primont, Can J Econ 29:587–591, 1996). In this paper, it is shown that if not implemented properly, the test can lead to biased results. Some ways to obtain unbiased results are also suggested.

The art of forgiveness

The art of forgiveness is a significant managerial process for dealing with intrapsychic and interpersonal injury and error in the health care environment. The ability to forgive is essential if healthy relationships are to be maintained and job productivity is to be enhanced. This article outlines who needs to be forgiven, the process of forgiveness, why forgiveness is difficult, and strategies for the manager in the art of forgiveness.     

AN OPEN-ECONOMY NEW KEYNESIAN PHILLIPS CURVE: EVIDENCE FROM HONG KONG

Abstract. This paper extends the new hybrid Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) to the open‐economy context. We hypothesize that pricing decisions depend on both labour costs and intermediate imported input prices. The results for Hong Kong are consistent with the theory if import prices are given substantial weight in measuring marginal cost, rejecting the labour costs model. We find that forward‐looking behaviour is dominant, and that price stickiness is smaller in Hong Kong than in the USA. The results are sensitive to the choice of instruments, and a model using the output gap instead of marginal cost as the forcing variable also performs well.     

Sequential Data Assimilation Techniques in Oceanography

We review recent developments of sequential data assimilation techniques used in oceanography to integrate spatio-temporal observations into numerical models describing physical and ecological dynamics. Theoretical aspects from the simple case of linear dynamics to the general case of nonlinear dynamics are described from a geostatistical point-of-view. Current methods derived from the Kalman filter are presented from the least complex to the most general and perspectives for nonlinear estimation by sequential importance resampling filters are discussed. Furthermore an extension of the ensemble Kalman filter to transformed Gaussian variables is presented and illustrated using a simplified ecological model. The described methods are designed for predicting over geographical regions using a high spatial resolution under the practical constraint of keeping computing time sufficiently low to obtain the prediction before the fact. Therefore the paper focuses on widely used and computationally efficient methods.     

CANTILLON AND HUME ON MONEY AND BANKING: THE FOUNDATIONS OF TWO THEORETICAL TRADITIONS

The distinction between the ‘classical’ monetary theory and ‘quantity’ theory has been proposed in literature on money and banking. The overall feature of the classical theory of money is that it holds one principle of regulation for each kind of issue (metallic money, bank issues and paper money) whereas the quantity theory applied the causality and proportionality postulates for all kinds of monies. Without claiming to adjudicate the validity of such a distinction, the paper investigates the foundation of each tradition. In this respect, this paper, respectively, examines, and provides a survey of the secondary literature on, Cantillon's Essai and the Hume's Discourses.