A simple model of cumulative prospect theory

The present paper combines loss attitudes and linear utility by providing an axiomatic analysis of cumulative prospect theory (CPT) in the framework for decision under uncertainty. We derive a two-sided variant of Choquet expected utility (CEU) with possibly different capacities for gains and for losses, and linear utility. Naturally, utility may have a kink at the status quo, which allows for the exhibition of loss aversion. The central condition of our model is termed independence of common increments.     

Dynamic stochastic games with random moves

We reformulate the quality ladder model of Pakes and McGuire, Rand Journal of Economics, 25(4), 555–589 (1994) as a dynamic stochastic game with random moves in which each period one firm is picked at random to make an investment decision. Contrasting this model to the standard version with simultaneous moves illustrates the computational advantages of random moves. In particular, the quality ladder model with random moves avoids the curse of dimensionality in computing firms’ expectations over all possible future states and is therefore orders of magnitude faster to solve than its counterpart with simultaneous moves when there are more than just a few firms. Perhaps unexpectedly, the equilibria of the quality ladder model with random moves are practically indistinguishable from those of the model with simultaneous moves.

     

The intraday multivariate structure of the Eurofutures markets

We investigate the multivariate intraday structure in interest rates, focusing on implied forward rates from Eurofutures contracts. Since futures markets are the most liquid for interest rate instruments and they yield high-quality intraday data, it is somehow surprising that their intraday behavior has not been thoroughly studied in the literature.We find interesting similarities with the foreign exchange market: scaling law, intraday patterns, all of which point to the heterogeneity of market participants. Other properties like asymmetric causal information flow between fine and coarse volatilities for the same time series are present in our data. There are also lead–lag correlations across the term structure of implied forward rates, but they tend to disappear as markets mature.A principal component analysis of the short end of the yield curve allows us to determine the most important components and to reduce the number of time series needed to describe the term structure. We find the decomposition rather stable over time. The first component, which describes the curve level, shows an asymmetry in the information flow between volatilities of different time resolution, i.e., the coarse-grained volatility predicts the fine-grained volatility better than the other way around, as observed in the foreign exchange market. The remaining components do not show such an effect, having instead significant negative autocorrelations for the time series themselves. A heterogeneous autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (HARCH) model is estimated for the first component and the impact of different market agents is discussed.     

Downward Wage Rigidity in Europe: A New Flexible Parametric Approach and Empirical Results

Abstract. We suggest a new parametric approach to estimate the extent of downward nominal wage rigidity in ten European countries between 1995 and 2001. The database used throughout is the User Data Base of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). The proposed approach is based on the generalized hyperbolic distribution, which allows to model wage change distributions characterized by thick tales, skewness and leptokurtosis. Significant downward nominal wage rigidity is found in all countries under analysis, but the extent varies considerably across countries. Yearly estimates reveal increasing rigidity in Italy, Greece and Portugal, while rigidity is declining in Denmark and Belgium. The results imply that the costs of price stability differ substantially across Europe.