Chaotic Exchange Rate Dynamics Redux

This article generalizes the results shown in De Grauwe, Dewachter, and Embrechts (1993) in a more sophisticated framework. In their model, the speculative dynamics resulting from the interaction between chartists and fundamentalists are incorporated into a Dornbusch-style model to generate a chaotic nominal exchange rate. Here the model of Obstfeld and Rogoff (1995, 1996) replaces the Dornbusch model, and chaotic solutions are still shown to be possible for sensible parameter values.     

Users' perceptions of the free,virtual-only service experience

Like manufacturing multinational enterprises, multinational banks, although being more subject to local regulation and market preferences, are increasingly changing their international attitude. Namely, they rely on foreign activities not only as a means to exploit their own competitive advantages within foreign markets, but also to access exclusive assets, resources, and competencies that could be transferred back to the whole network to enhance and strengthen their competitive advantages. The reported research refers to data on the evolution of the Italian banks' foreign initiatives in the 1998–2004 period. Using such data, the authors investigate the determinants of the coexistence of strategies that are both competence-exploiting and competence-enhancing, using the traditional eclectic approach.     

Identification and Estimation of Distributional Impacts of Interventions Using Changes in Inequality Measures

This paper presents estimators of distributional impacts of interventions when selection to the program is based on observable characteristics. Distributional impacts are calculated as differences in inequality measures of the marginal distributions of potential outcomes of receiving and not receiving the treatment. The estimation procedure involves a first non‐parametric estimation of the propensity score. In the second step weighted versions of inequality measures are computed using weights based on the estimated propensity score. Consistency, semi‐parametric efficiency and validity of inference based on the percentile bootstrap are shown for the estimators. Results from Monte Carlo exercises show its good performance in small samples. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

NUMERAIRE,SAVINGS AND THE INSTABILITY OF A COMPETITIVE EQUILIBRIUM

This paper addresses the stability of a multimarket competitive equilibrium. The dependence of stability on the choice of the numeraire is clarified. The traditional tâtonnement pricing is revised in order to satisfy some basic features of economic behaviour. Well‐known conditions for local stability are proved to be insufficient if a market for credit is introduced alongside the markets of dated commodities. Stability depends not only on the slopes of the demand and supply curves, but also on equilibrium prices. This result emerges without the occurrence of capital perversities, such as reswitching and reverse capital deepening.     

Modeling exchange rate passthrough after large devaluations

Large devaluations are generally associated with large declines in real exchange rates. We develop a model which embodies two complementary forces that account for the large declines in the real exchange rate that occur in the aftermath of large devaluations. The first force is sticky nontradable-goods prices. The second force is the impact of real shocks that often accompany large devaluations. We argue that sticky nontradable goods prices generally play an important role in explaining post-devaluation movements in real exchange rates. However, real shocks can sometimes be primary drivers of real exchange-rate movements.     

What explains the lagged-investment effect?

The best predictor of current investment at the firm level is lagged investment. This lagged-investment effect is empirically more important than the cash-flow and Q effects combined. We show that the specification of investment adjustment costs proposed by Christiano et al. (2005) predicts the presence of a lagged-investment effect and that a generalized version of their model is consistent with the behavior of firm-level data from Compustat.     

Mobile gaming: Industry challenges and policy implications

Mobile games are a prime example of a successful mobile application and demonstrate the increasing range of platforms for the media and entertainment industries. Against this convergent background, this paper introduces the basic features of the mobile gaming market and its industrial ecosystem together with its main actors and activities. The focus of the paper lies in the challenges ahead for the evolution of mobile applications into a potentially dominant game platform and the possible disruptions along this road. The deep personal relationships between users and their mobile devices are considered to further explore the link between mobile games, players’ strategies and pending techno-economic developments. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of some policy options to assist with the development of this domain.     

Shared wealth or nobody's land? The worth of natural capital and ecosystem services

The prerequisite for a sustainable and equitable use of common resources (the so-called Commons) must be the proper evaluation of their role within the complex network of relationships that ensure ecosystems functioning, resilience, and evolutionary dynamics. It is crucial to ascertain to what extent the common wealth is used for the common benefit. Money-based schemes for valuing the Commons, such as the so-called “willingness-to-pay”, provide a user-side evaluation perspective based on the idea that value only stems from utilization by humans. As a complement to such a point of view, we present and discuss in this paper a donor-side evaluation method (Emergy Synthesis) based on the idea that a proper measure of value can be achieved by also accounting for the work done by the biosphere in generating services and resources. It should not be disregarded that such resources and services also provide support to other species in the web of life. Emergy, a scientific measure of such environmental support, is suggested as a tool capable to assess quantity and quality of shared resources, thus providing a basis for their environmentally sound management.