Match‐Fixing in a Monopoly Betting Market

A monopolist bookmaker may set betting odds on a fairly even contest to induce match‐fixing by an influential corrupt punter. His loss to the corrupt punter is more than made up for by enticing enough ordinary punters to bet on the losing team. This result is in sharp contrast to competitive bookmaking, where even contests have been shown to be immune to fixing. The analysis also reveals a surprising result that the incidence of match‐fixing can dramatically fall when match‐fixing opportunities rise. This is shown by comparing two scenarios—when only one team is corruptible and when both are corruptible. For both teams corruptible, the bookmaker is uncertain about to which team the influential punter will have access, so carefully maneuvering the odds to induce match‐fixing is too costly.     

NONLINEAR AUTOREGRESSIVE DISTRIBUTED LAG APPROACH AND BILATERAL J‐CURVE: INDIA VERSUS HER TRADING PARTNERS

The J‐curve studies related to India have mostly either used aggregate trade flows of India with the rest of the world or between India and its trading partners. They have all assumed exchange rate changes have symmetric effects on Indian trade balance. In this article, we use partial sum concept combined with the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach of Shin et al. to show that indeed in some instances, there are evidences of asymmetry effects of currency depreciation. This new nonlinear approach provides more support for the J‐curve than the previous linear approaches. (JEL F31)     

Gender Differences in the Giving and Taking Variants of the Dictator Game

We run between‐subject dictator games with exogenously specified “give” or “take” frames involving a balanced pool of male and female dictators and constant payoff possibilities. We find the following: Females allocate more under the taking frame than under the giving frame. Males allocate more under the giving frame than under the taking frame. In the taking frame females are more generous than males. But in the giving frame both are equally generous. Finally, when the combined population of males and females is considered, giving is found to be equivalent to “not taking,” because the opposing gender effects offset each other.     

Coherent forecasting for count time series using Box–Jenkins's AR(p) model

During the last three decades, integer‐valued autoregressive process of order p [or INAR(p)] based on different operators have been proposed as a natural, intuitive and maybe efficient model for integer‐valued time‐series data. However, this literature is surprisingly mute on the usefulness of the standard AR(p) process, which is otherwise meant for continuous‐valued time‐series data. In this paper, we attempt to explore the usefulness of the standard AR(p) model for obtaining coherent forecasting from integer‐valued time series. First, some advantages of this standard Box–Jenkins's type AR(p) process are discussed. We then carry out our some simulation experiments, which show the adequacy of the proposed method over the available alternatives. Our simulation results indicate that even when samples are generated from INAR(p) process, Box–Jenkins's model performs as good as the INAR(p) processes especially with respect to mean forecast. Two real data sets have been employed to study the expediency of the standard AR(p) model for integer‐valued time‐series data.     

Are Shocks Transitory or Permanent? An Inquiry into Agricultural Commodity Prices

This paper contributes to the contentious topic of whether shocks to agricultural commodity prices are permanent or transitory. This is an important issue with regards to forecasting, economic modelling of agricultural prices and risk management. Past studies have not accounted for important characteristics of agricultural prices that matter when testing whether shocks to prices are permanent or transitory. These include the presence or absence of a deterministic trend, the possible break in the trend, non‐stationary volatility, and the problem of the initial deviation of commodity prices from their long‐run mean or trend. We conduct a comprehensive test that incorporates all these characteristics known to plague agricultural commodity prices. Though the conclusion is mixed, the balance is in favour of agricultural price shocks being permanent in nature. This result departs from the general view that in theory, agricultural prices should be stationary, suggesting that the controversy of whether shocks to agricultural prices are temporary or permanent is not yet over.     

The share of the global energy mix: Signs of convergence?

This paper investigates the convergence behaviour regarding the share of global energy mix, as measured by primary energy consumption. Recent studies that employ stationary tests of panel data suggest that such data support the convergence hypothesis; however, some drawbacks exist, as these studies rely on methods that do not necessarily imply a sufficient condition for convergence. This paper adopts the concept of relative convergence as proposed by Phillips and Sul (2007), which employs a time‐varying, idiosyncratic component. We choose to focus on various sources’ global primary energy consumption and investigate the long‐ run dynamic behaviour by source. The key finding of this paper is that two distinct clubs of convergence of energy can be determined: renewable and non‐renewable energy clubs of convergence.     

A New Approach to Estimating Damages in Mass Torts

Damage estimation in mass torts involving hazardous or defective products is often complicated by the unknown time-profile of disease incidence or failure rate. Because these cases involve diseases with long latencies or involve products that fail after years of productive use, estimation of the defendants' future liability stream requires a model that can predict how the failure rate or the onset of the disease will change over time.This paper proposes such a model. The estimation technique allows one to compute the 'excess risk' attributable to the hazard or product defect distinct from the natural causes of failure or disease incidence and to calculate the defendants' future liability stream based on the estimates of failure or incidence rates. An application to product failure illustrates the working of the model.     

Union-oligopoly bargaining and entry deterrence: a reassessment of limit pricing

This paper introduces wage bargaining in the framework of Milgrom and Roberts (Econometrica 50(2):443–459, 1982) where the workers’ reservation wage is the private information parameter critical for entry. We show that entry threat significantly distorts the wage, which in some cases adversely affects the firm’s ability to signal through price. Consequently, the separating equilibrium (in price) does not always exist. If, however, wage agreements are made public, signalling occurs with or without distortions in wage depending on whether the union’s bargaining power is high or low. Pooling equilibrium also exists and it features similar distortions. We also examine which signal, wage or price, generates greater social welfare. We would like to thank two referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. This paper is partially based on a chapter of Pal’s PhD thesis done at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), India. For remaining errors we are solely responsible.     

An Ongoing race: family CEOs vs. non-family CEOs

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - Recent studies have established that non-family CEOs invariably outperform family CEOs. In this paper, we argue that the case against family...