Effective regulation versus tacit collusion in the long-distance market: an empirical analysis

Regulatory decisions often must be made in an atmosphere of uncertainty, and arguments presented by the affected parties frequently add to, rather than resolve, that uncertainty. Here, we examine several of the deregulatory decisions affecting the long-distance market that were rendered by the FCC over the two-decade period following the divestiture of AT&T. Our purpose is to provide empirical evidence relevant to some of the arguments regarding market conditions that were presented during that period. Findings suggest that some of the more prominent allegations are not supported by the data.      

On a clear day you might see an environmental Kuznets curve

We shed some new light on the Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and show how it can be viewed as a particular form of equilibrium relationship, where technology and preference parameters determine the shape of the curve. In contrast to most of the literature on the EKC, we estimate a theoretically consistent model on long-run data (Swedish sulfur emission, covering the period 1900–2002). Furthermore, we test and date structural change. The model suggests four regimes, 1900–1918, 1919–1933, 1934–1967 and 1968–2002, generating four rather different patterns for pollution over time. The policy-conclusions are consonant with Pearce’s general view about the EKC: there is no theoretical presumption that it has an inverted U shape, nor should any country try to “grow out of the environmental problems” without analyzing the benefits and costs of so doing.     

Recursive utility with unbounded aggregators

A new framework is presented for the study of the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Koopmans’ equation in the unbounded case, that is based on the contraction mapping approach. In the bounded below case with bounded consumption streams, uniqueness of the solution in the whole class of weak-star continuous utility functions is obtained. When the aggregator is unbounded below and/or consumption streams are unbounded, existence of a weak-star continuous solution is shown, and a simple criterium to check the sufficient conditions for existence is provided. Juan Pablo Rincón-Zapatero and Carlos Rodríguez-Palmero gratefully acknowledge financial support by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and FEDER funds under Research Projects MTM2005-06534 and SEJ2005-08709/ECON, respectively, and by Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Castilla y León under Research Projects VA99/04 and VA017B05, respectively. This paper has substantially benefited from the comments of an anonymous referee. Particular and special thanks are due to Robert Becker for his very helpful comments and valuable suggestions.     

On the impact of leverage constraints on asset prices and trading volume

Abstract. Researchers have used stylized facts on asset prices and trading volume in stock markets (in particular, the mean reversion of asset returns and the correlations between trading volume, price changes and price levels) to support theories where agents are not rational expected utility maximizers. This paper shows that this empirical evidence is in fact consistent with a standard infinite horizon – perfect information – expected utility economy where some agents face leverage constraints similar to those found in todays financial markets. In addition, and in sharp contrast to the theories above, we explain some qualitative differences that are observed in the price-volume relation on stock and on futures markets. We consider a continuous-time economy where agents maximize the integral of their discounted utility from consumption under both budget and leverage constraints. Building on the work by Vila and Zariphopoulou (1997), we find a closed form solution, up to a negative constant, for the equilibrium prices and demands in the region of the state space where the constraint is non-binding. We show that, at the equilibrium, stock holdings volatility as well as its ratio to stock price volatility are increasing functions of the stock price and interpret this finding in terms of the price-volume relation. We would like to thank the editor and two anonimous referees for valuable substantive comments. Our gratitude also to Franklin Allen, Kerry Back, Domenico Cuoco, Xavier Freixas, Sanford Grossman, Michel Habib, Lutz Hendricks, Richard Kihlstrom, Fernando Restoy, Mary Thomson, Jean-Luc Vila, participants to seminars at Birkbeck College, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, ESSEC, HEC, IAE, INSEAD, London Business School, London School of Economics, McGill, Michigan, National University of Singapore, Pompeu Fabra, North Carolina, Washington-St-Louis, Wharton, the Jornadas de Economía Financiera BBV, and the Meetings of the Society for Economic Dynamics and Control and the American Finance Association. Special thanks are due to Süleyman Basak for his enthusiastic support and many helpful suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the BBV and Caja de Madrid Foundations and CREF (both authors) and of the Spanish Ministry of Education under DGICYT grant no. PB93-0388 (first author).     

Discrepancies between ex ante and ex post efficiency under identical subjective probabilities

Summary. Starr (1973) showed that, if people have different subjective probabilities, ex ante and ex post efficiency conflict. Conversely, under the simple preferences that he considered, the discrepancy between ex ante and ex post efficiency disappears when subjective probabilities are identical. Here I consider identical subjective probabilities, but more general preferences. First, risk attraction is admitted. Second, I dispense with the double requirement (dubbed IZU) of additive separability and state-independence of the utility of zero-date consumption, an unrealistic requirement when modeling the investment in durable goods. I find that, under IZU, and as long as ex post preferences satisfy the natural assumption of quasiconcavity (and satisfy some technical qualifications), an ex ante efficient allocation is indeed ex post efficient, but the converse is not necessarily true under risk attraction. If, on the other hand, IZU is violated, then one can have ex ante efficient allocations that are not ex post efficient, and vice-versa, even under risk aversion. Received: June 25, 1999; revised version: March 2001     

The Nonparametric Approach to Applied Welfare Analysis

Changes in total surplus are traditional measures of economic welfare. We propose necessary and sufficient conditions for rationalizing individual and aggregate consumer demand data with individual quasilinear and homothetic utility functions. Under these conditions, consumer surplus is a valid measure of consumer welfare. For nonmarketed goods, we propose necessary and sufficient conditions on input market data for efficient production, i.e. production at minimum cost. Under these conditions we derive a cost function for the nonmarketed good, where producer surplus is the area above the marginal cost curve. We are greatful to helpful remarks and comments of the referees and the editor. The work is partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, through Grant BEC2002-2130, the Generalitat de Catlaunya, through Grant 2005SGR-00454 and the Barcelona Economics Program (CREA).     

Rock Paper Scissors

Rock Paper Scissors is used to resolve conflict when a compromise is not possible. Individuals playing ``games' tend to have biases they prefer to play. I show that Rock Paper Scissors with biased players results in a player with a high valuation for winning being victorious with a probability greater than a player with a low valuation. Thus, it frequently achieves the efficient outcome. Furthermore, as the benefit to victory increases for all players, victory for each player becomes equally likely. Therefore, it is often efficient for minor conflicts while it performs no better than a coin-flip for major conflicts.