Voluntary Quality Disclosure under Price‐Signaling Competition

We analyze an oligopolistic competition with differentiated products and qualities. The quality of a product is not known to consumers. Each firm can make an imperfect disclosure of its product quality before engaging in price‐signaling competition. There are two regimes for separating equilibrium in our model depending on the parameters. Our analysis reveals that, in one of the separating regimes, price signaling leads to intense price competition between the firms under which not only the high‐quality firm but also the low‐quality firm chooses to disclose its product quality to soften the price competition. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inventories, employment and hours

This paper develops a model that integrates inventory and labor decisions. We extend a model of inventory behavior to include a detailed specification of the role of labor input in the production process, distinguishing between employment, hours and effort per worker. We estimate jointly the Euler equations for inventories and employment, a labor compensation schedule, and an hours requirement function with the cross-equation restrictions imposed. The econometric results shed light on several important topics, including the shape of the marginal cost of output, the role of labor hoarding as an explanation of pro-cyclical productivity, and the persistence of inventory stocks.     

Market‐Based Measures of Monetary Policy Expectations and Their Evolution Since the Introduction of the Euro

The paper considers the relation between monetary policy expectations and financial markets in the case of Europe. A number of money market instruments are compared, with the result that the 1‐month forward interest rates extracted from the Libor yield curve has the best prediction power of the future monetary policy path. These forward rates have been used to study the evolution of market expectations regarding the monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). The sharp increases and the following decreases in interest rates during 2000–2001 have reduced the predictive power of money market instruments, but smoother management of interest rates and better communication from the ECB has helped to improve the forecasting power of money market instruments.     

Sovereign debt as a contingent claim: a quantitative approach

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide set of parameters, the only equilibrium is one in which the sovereign defaults in all states; additional output losses, however, sustain equilibria that resemble the data. We show that due to the adverse selection problem, some countries choose to delay default to reduce loss of reputation. Moreover, although equilibria with no default imply greater welfare levels, they are not sustainable in highly indebted and volatile countries.     

Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of investment?: Micro-evidence from developing countries

Using firm level panel data from 12 developing countries we explore whether financial liberalization improves the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. A summary index of the efficiency of investment allocation that measures whether investment funds are going to firms with a higher marginal return to capital is developed. We examine the relationship between this and various measures of financial liberalization and find that liberalization increases the efficiency with which investment funds are allocated. This holds after various robustness checks and is consistent with firm level evidence of a stronger association between investment and fundamentals after financial liberalization.     

Endogenous lifetime,accidental bequests and economic growth

This paper introduces the concept of unintentional bequests in a closed economy à la Chakraborty (J Econ Theory 116:119–137, 2004) with overlapping generations. We show that scarce public investments in health can lead to poverty traps depending on the relative size of the output elasticity of capital. More importantly, the existence of unintentional bequests, rather than a market for annuities, means that health tax rates play a prominent role in determining the stability of the long-term equilibrium in rich economies. In fact, Neimark–Sacker bifurcations and endogenous fluctuations occur depending on the size of the public health system.     

Do cooperative enterprises create social trust?

This article contributes to the literature by carrying out the first empirical investigation into the role of different types of enterprises in the creation of social trust. Drawing on a unique data set collected through the administration of a questionnaire to a representative sample of the population of the Italian Province of Trento in March 2011, we find that cooperatives are the only type of enterprise where the work environment fosters the social trust of workers.     

Fairness and the Unselfish Demand for Redistribution by Taxpayers and Welfare Recipients

We theoretically illustrate how the aversion to unfairness triggers an unselfish though rational demand for redistribution. This leads the well-off to demand positive tax rates and the “poor” to reject extreme progressivity. We prove that the “rich” and the “poor” adjust their demand for redistribution in opposite ways when their sensitivity to fairness increases: while agents with above average expected income raise their demand for redistribution, agents with below average income lower it. We then provide empirical evidence of these behaviors using a nationally representative survey from Italy. The estimates confirm that a stronger aversion to unfair distributive outcomes is associated with a higher support for redistribution by individuals with high income and to a lower demand for redistribution by those with low income.     

THE ROLE OF PATENTS IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE

During the last few decades, the number of patents in information and communication technologies has increased considerably. An increasing number of patents and the associated fragmentation of IP rights have generated a series of potentially problematic consequences. Patent thickets, royalty stacking, the emergence of patent assertion entities, increased patent litigation – particularly around standard essential patents – and the difficulties with defining fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory licensing terms are some of the most debated issues in the literature that we review in this paper. We devote a specific section of our survey to patent quality, currently one of the most debated issues surrounding the patent system. In our analysis, we mix theoretical and empirical arguments with a more policy‐oriented reasoning. This allows us to better position the different issues in the relevant political and economic context.