Power‐Sharing in Monetary Policy Committees: Evidence from the United Kingdom and Sweden

Committees may make better monetary policy decisions than individuals; however, the benefits of group decision making could be lost if committee members cede power to a chairman. We develop an econometric model to describe intracommittee power‐sharing across members. Estimation of the model permits us to classify monetary policy committees into the typology developed by Blinder ( 2004 , 2007 ). We estimate our model for the United Kingdom's Bank of England (BOE) and Sweden's Riksbank. Results for the BOE suggest that the Governor has little influence over other committee members, while those for the Riksbank indicate that the Governor is highly influential.     

Performance Effects of Setting a High Reference Point for Peer‐Performance Comparison

We conduct a field experiment, based on a registered report accepted by the Journal of Accounting Research, to test performance effects of setting a high reference point for peer‐performance comparison. Relative to providing the median as a reference point for online students to compare themselves to, providing the top quartile: damps performance for those below the median, boosts performance for those between the median and top quartile, and, in the case of outcome but not process comparison, boosts performance for those above the top quartile. We do not find that either reference point yields a greater average performance effect. However, providing the more effective reference point in each partition of initial performance yields a 40% greater performance effect than providing either reference point uniformly. Students access the online courses intermittently over the span of a year. Our effects derive from small portions of our treatment groups—5% in the case of process comparison and 26% in the case of outcome comparison—who accessed treatment and who were, on average, more active leading up to and during our intervention.     

What do Australian Annual Reports Say About Future Earnings?

Prospective earnings information in Australian firms' annual reports has been claimed to be of sufficient importance to warrant its statutory requirement, or at least its "active encouragement". With the introduction of AASB 1039 Concise Financial Reports, management discussion and analysis is required in some circumstances, although there is no explicit requirement to provide prospective earnings disclosures. A survey of a sample of ASX-listed firms shows that about 25% include some form of earnings forecast, although most are qualitative, while even a coarse measure of their accuracy suggests they are relatively unreliable. These results give rise to some concern that encouraging the provision of prospective earnings data may not necessarily assist investors.     

PATENT DAMAGES AND SPATIAL COMPETITION*

We analyze price competition between a spatially differentiated product patentee and an imitator anticipating probabilistic future patent damages. We compare the performance of three damage regimes. The ‘reasonable royalty’ regime, which yields symmetric equilibrium pricing, maximizes static welfare and yields the highest innovation incentives when patent enforcement is nearly certain. The ‘lost profits’ regime, which may deter infringement, yields the highest innovation incentives when patent enforcement is less‐than‐certain and products are sufficiently valuable. The ‘unjust enrichment’ regime yields low static efficiency and low innovation incentives. We offer new insights into the ‘hypothetical negotiation’ that courts use to construct reasonable royalties.     

SAVING ENERGY THROUGH BETTER INFORMATION: A NEW ENERGY PARADIGM?

For the past 40 years, governments, utilities, and private companies have developed increasingly efficient appliances for household use and governments have initiated policies to encourage the deployment of these technologies. To the credit of these activities, we have improved the efficiency of electricity use in the United States, but it has not been enough to overcome the increasing demand from proliferation of electricity‐using devices. In addition, penetration rates for some types of efficient equipment have remained relatively low in certain regions. U.S. electricity demand thus continues to grow. In this paper, we argue that to achieve significantly greater efficiency improvements needed to meet future demand for energy services, we should provide more information to consumers about their energy use and give them more control over this use. While more studies are needed to assess just how far these types of measures can take us, there is enough evidence to show that with better information, consumers often make choices that reduce energy use.