Effects of limit order book information level on market stability metrics

Using an agent-based model of the limit order book, we explore how the levels of information available to participants, exchanges, and regulators can be used to improve our understanding of the stability and resiliency of a market. Ultimately, we want to know if electronic market data contains previously undetected information that could allow us to better assess market stability. Using data produced in the controlled environment of an agent-based model’s limit order book, we examine various resiliency indicators to determine their predictive capabilities. Most of the types of data created have traditionally been available either publicly or on a restricted basis to regulators and exchanges, but other types have never been collected. We confirmed our findings using actual order flow data with user identifications included from the CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and New York Mercantile Exchange. Our findings strongly suggest that high-fidelity microstructure data in combination with price data can be used to define stability indicators capable of reliably signaling a high likelihood for an imminent flash crash event about one minute before it occurs.     

Credit Booms Gone Bust: Replication of Schularick and Taylor (AER 2012)

This paper replicates the results in Schularick and Taylor (American Economic Review 2012; 102 (2): 1029–1061; ST hereafter). Specifically, I replicate ST's results in the ‘narrow’ sense by reproducing their calculations in the open source econometrics package gretl. (Gretl is an acronym for Gnu Regression, Econometrics and Time‐series Laboratory. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux at www.gretl.sourceforge.net .) I also demonstrate the robustness of ST's findings to different estimation methods. I obtain qualitatively similar results to ST via Bayesian estimation of both static and dynamic panel probit models. Finally, I show that the marginal effects of credit growth on the probability of a financial crisis vary considerably across the countries in the dataset. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public perceptions of nursing careers: the influence of the media and nursing shortages

The high public regard for nurses has not necessarily translated into an adequate supply of individuals who are willing to be nurses. The expected future demand for nurse labor challenges us to look more closely at the public's perceptions of nursing and nursing careers, and consider how they are shaped by personal experience, media messages, and socio-demographic factors. As part of ongoing efforts to examine factors shaping the future of the nursing workforce, a national survey of Americans was conducted to probe attitudes toward the nursing profession and their experiences with nurses. The data in this national survey of the public about nursing demonstrate that the nursing profession is highly respected and that the vast majority of the general public would recommend nursing careers to qualified students. If the profession is so well thought of and so highly recommended, why are there persistent concerns that not enough people are becoming RNs to avoid or at least slow down the development of future shortages? A prolonged and persistent effort is needed to educate people about nursing careers, to stimulate the expanded production of nursing faculty, and to bring creative approaches to financing nursing education and workforce improvements to convert the large number of seriously interested candidates into the nursing profession.     

Change in income distribution and aggregate spending: constraints on full-employment?

During the 1980s, rising income inequality in the UK resulted partly from market conditions, and partly from supply-side policies that reduced social security benefits and income supports for low-wage earners. Greater Inequality, plus low levels of investment spending (relative to consumption)hinder the ability of demand management to raise the level of output and employment in the UK economy. Higher income earners have higher import propensities. Consequently, at any stage of the economic cycle, the trade dificit is now larger than it was before 1980. Increases in demand leak into a demand for imports, further reducing the incentive to invest. The paper argues for lower interest rates to encourage investment, and a fiscal policy that redistributes income towards those with lower incomes to solve these problems.     

Alternative Perspectives on Post-Keynesian Price Theory

We present an overview of recent developments in methodological and epistemological discussion in post-Keynesian work. We use these developments as a basis for judging various contributions to the post-Keynesian literature on pricing, in particular the arguments presented by Lee in recent issues of this journal, whilst acknowledging the positive contribution of Lee's work, we argue that his critique of post-Keynesian pricing theory is flawed and that his 'empirical pricing model' is consequently ill-founded.     

The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions

This article assesses the social consequences of efforts by multinational corporations to capture business value through recycling, reusing materials and reducing waste. Synthesising evidence from the global environmental justice and feminist and international political economy (IPE) literatures, it analyses the changing social property relations of global recycling chains. The authors argue that, although recycling more would seem to make good ecological sense, corporate programmes can rely on and further ingrain social patterns of harm and exploitation, particularly for the burgeoning labour force that depends on recyclables for subsistence living. Turning the waste stream into a profit stream also relies on prison labour in some places, such as in the United States where the federal government operates one of the country's largest electronics recycling programmes. The ongoing corporatisation of recycling, the authors argue further, is devaluing already marginalised populations within the global economy. Highlighting the need to account for the dynamism between social and environmental change within IPE scholarship, the article concludes by underlining the ways in which ‘green commerce’ programmes can shift capital's contradictions from nature onto labour.