Production Period and Cycles: Several Interpretations in a Neo-Austrian Economic Perspective

The aim of this contribution is to study the notion of the period of production by taking into consideration the time-consuming nature of capital. Long delays between investment expenditures and receipts of profits from capital are indeed a remarkable property of the Austrian theory of capital. The study of the great essays of the neo-Austrian capital theory modeling allows us to postulate that there are at least two large contributing groups depending upon whether the production period is endogenous or exogenous. Our work consists in showing the well-founded methodology of the first current by suggesting a neo-Austrian inerpretation of the non-steady state behavior of the standard macroeconomic model. We show that the origin of economic cycles is the potential conflict between the producer's plan of investment through the period of production and the inter-temporal choices of the consumers.     

Official central bank interventions and exchange rate volatility: Evidence from a regime-switching analysis

In this paper, we investigate the effect of central bank interventions on the weekly returns and volatility of the DEM/USD and YEN/USD exchange rate returns. In contrast with previous analyses, we allow for regime-dependent specifications and investigate whether official interventions can explain the observed volatility regime switches. It is found that, depending on the prevailing volatility level, coordinated central bank interventions can lead to either a stabilizing or a destabilizing effect. Our results lead us to challenge the usual view that such interventions always imply increases in volatility.     

Multifrequency jump-diffusions: An equilibrium approach

This paper proposes that equilibrium valuation is a powerful method to generate endogenous jumps in asset prices. We specify an economy with continuous consumption and dividend paths, in which endogenous price jumps originate from the market impact of regime-switches in the drifts and volatilities of fundamentals. We parsimoniously incorporate regimes of heterogeneous durations and verify that the persistence of a shock endogenously increases the magnitude of the induced price jump. As the number of frequencies driving fundamentals goes to infinity, the price process converges to a novel stochastic process, which we call a multifractal jump-diffusion.     

On the inefficiency of European socialist economies

This paper aims at comparing macroeconomic performance of three European socialist economies (Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia) with developing and developed countries during the 1970s and the 1980s. Using panel data for 89 countries, we measure macroeconomic performance with two panel data production frontier models: the WITHIN model proposed by (Cornwell et al J Econom 46:185–200, 1990), and the firm effects model developed by (Battese and Coelli J Prod Anal 3:153–169, 1992). We conclude in favor of the underperformance of socialist countries in relation to developed countries but also to developing countries in most cases, which may be explained by the features of the socialist economic system.

EMAC Distinguished Marketing Scholar 2012: Respect the data!

Consumer research suffers from a lack of respect for data. Researchers routinely fail to report full experiments that do not produce expected results and often eliminate alleged “outliers” on the basis of inappropriate rules, leading to biased test reports. Scholars appear to be relying less on non-experimental data, even as the serious limitations of experimental data may create structural discrepancies with the other, non-experimental cases of a phenomenon or process, such that it becomes impossible to study some major consumer phenomena. The lessons from empirical data get accepted only when they can be described as confirming preexisting conceptual frameworks. This article presents an extensive analysis of multiple forms of a lack of respect for the data and proposes some remedies. Overall, data should never play a subordinate part.     

REGULATION OF POLLUTION IN THE LABORATORY: RANDOM INSPECTIONS,AMBIENT INSPECTIONS,AND COMMITMENT PROBLEMS

We compare experimentally a traditional random inspection policy and a variant where the agency may carry out a preliminary inspection of the level of ambient pollution before implementing any individual inspection. Since the agency may have an incentive to announce high inspection probabilities and then secretly renege on its announcement to avoid implementing costly inspections, we are also interested in the agency's commitment power. We find that overall, ambient inspections increase efficiency but the effect is weaker than expected when the agency has no commitment power; and polluters' reactions to the lack of commitment power of the agency vary depending on whether the agency uses ambient inspections or not.     

“Upping the ante”: how to design efficient auctions with entry?

Of primary importance in auction design is the set of strategies available to the seller at the auction stage. We first formalize hold‐up regarding entry costs that preys on second‐price auctions when the seller may engage in a costly shill‐bidding activity. We derive the optimal reserve and show how shill bidding can make posted prices outperforming auctions. Second, we advocate for a new regulation where shills would be banned but with the possibility of canceling sales ex post, which offers some valuable flexibility: the English auction with jump bids implements, then, the first best in general environments.