Bankruptcy costs, liability dollarization, and vulnerability to sudden stops

Countries with intermediate levels of institutional quality suffer larger output contractions following sudden stops of capital inflows than less developed nations. However, countries with strong institutions seldom experience significant falls in output after capital flow reversals. We reconcile these two observations using a calibrated DSGE model that extends the financial accelerator framework developed in Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999). The model captures financial market institutional quality with creditors' ability to recover assets from bankrupt firms. Bankruptcy costs affect vulnerability to sudden stops directly but also indirectly by affecting the degree of liability dollarization. Simulations reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between bankruptcy costs and the output loss following sudden stops.     

Sustainability and consumption

We consider the implications of the three pillars of sustainability (environment, economy and social justice) on consumption in a wealthy country. Building a theoretical model that includes consumers, business, government, the environment, and economic and political relations between nations, we explore how sustainability should affect the consumption behavior of consumers, charitable aid to poorer countries, and responsible environmental practices by businesses. Our model enables us to provide normative implications for consumers, society and business. Importantly, we assume that all stakeholders will optimize their self-interest, and that altruism will only partly explain behavior consistent with sustainability. Among the more non-obvious findings are that (1) the poorer the poor countries are, the less the rich countries should consume, (2) the more sensitive the global political climate is to economic inequity between the rich and poor nations, the less the rich countries should consume, and (3) if aid to poor countries is effective enough, then the more materialistic the society is, the more charitable aid it should give. We also confirm a number of more intuitive findings, such as that business should use more green technology as the taxes on pollution and/or efficiency of green technology increase, and the more resource-intensive consumption is, the less consumers should consume. Taken as a whole, the findings imply that societal consumption patterns should be sensitive to aspects of environmental impact and social justice, even if altruistic motivations are absent.     

China's New Role in the International Financial Architecture

The rise of China is challenging the international financial architecture in a number of ways. This paper highlights three that are of critical importance: the challenge of absorbing massive Chinese savings; the incorporation of China into a cohesive global financial safety net; and the organisation of China's participation in funding the demand for international investment projects. The global financial architecture needs to be reformed. But what role should China play? The paper defines the options open to China and the opportunities and barriers it will face. We argue that China can work with the established economic powers in reforming the existing architecture. At the same time, China seeks cooperation in building new institutions and organisations that fill gaps in the existing arrangements. But no matter how international financial diplomacy plays out in the near term, deep financial and economic reform at home will alone deliver China a central role in the international financial architecture. Domestic reform could also attend to some of the challenges that currently plague China's impact on the system. The success or failure of these domestic reforms will be at the crux of the strength or fragility of the international financial architecture in the years ahead.     

Scheduling jobs with values dependent on their completion times

The paper concerns two scheduling problems with job values and losses of job values (costs) dependent on job completion times. In the first problem, we consider scheduling jobs with stepwise values in parallel processor environment. In the stepwise value, there is given a number of moments at which the job value decreases and between them the job value is constant (thus, the value deteriorates over time). The maximized criterion is the total job value. We prove strong NP-hardness of a single processor case of the problem and construct a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for a special case with fixed number of unrelated parallel processors and fixed number of common moments of job value changes. Additionally, for uniform and unrelated parallel processors we construct and experimentally test several heuristic algorithms based on the list strategy. The second problem is a single processor one with piecewise linear losses of job values (the loss increases over time). The minimized criterion is the total loss of job value. We prove strong NP-hardness of the problem and existence of a pseudo-polynomial time exact algorithm for its special case. We also construct some heuristic algorithms for this problem and verify experimentally their efficiency.     

Value in business and industrial marketing: Past,present, and future

This article offers an overview of research on the ‘value’ that businesses and industrial marketers analyze, create, and deliver. First, value literature (up to and around 2005 and post 2005) is discussed. This review highlights the changes in our notions of value and helps to identify seven areas for consideration that should drive future research: value proposition, relationship form, capabilities management, value metrics, temporal horizon, innovation imperative, and tactical focus. Following this depiction of value analysis, value creation, and value delivery, we present a process model for value orchestration in business and industrial marketing. Three activities collectively form the basis of value orchestration, namely structuring activities, bundling activities, and leveraging of resources.     

Bitcoin price and its marginal cost of production: support for a fundamental value

This study back-tests a marginal cost of production model proposed to value the digital currency Bitcoin. Results from both conventional regression and vector autoregression (VAR) models show that the marginal cost of production plays an important role in explaining Bitcoin prices, challenging recent allegations that Bitcoins are essentially worthless. Even with markets pricing Bitcoin in the thousands of dollars each, the valuation model seems robust. The data show that a price bubble that began in the Fall of 2017 resolved itself in early 2018, converging with the marginal cost model. This suggests that while bubbles may appear in the Bitcoin market, prices will tend to this bound and not collapse to zero.     

PENSION FUNDING IN A UNIONIZED ECONOMY

This paper analyzes the effects of pension funding for a small open economy in which wages are subject to bargaining. Using an overlapping-generations framework, we show that a reform away from a Pay-As-You-Go towards a funded pension system will be Pareto improving only if the reform results in a reduction in the steady-state unemployment rate. However, the reduction in the unemployment rate is by no means warranted: although for pension systems which involve a limited amount of intra-generational redistribution this is likely, for systems displaying a high degree of intra-generational redistribution the unemployment rate may well rise thus preventing the realization of welfare gains.