The use of blanket guarantees in banking crises

Policymakers often use guarantees on bank liabilities to prevent or contain bank runs during systemic banking crises, but their success has been debated. Using a sample of 42 episodes of banking crises, this paper finds that blanket guarantees do help to reduce liquidity pressures on banks, but only partially since they do not stem withdrawals from non-residents. Withdrawals following the announcement of guarantees are much more pronounced for non-resident liabilities than for foreign-currency denominated deposits—which may also be held by residents—suggesting that the results on non-residents are not driven by foreign-currency risk but by concerns about the government’s ability and commitment to honor the guarantee to non-resident liability holders.     

Exchange rate volatility and the mixture of distribution hypothesis

This study sheds new light on the mixture of distribution hypothesis by means of a study of the weekly exchange rate volatility of the Norwegian krone. In line with other studies we find that the impact of information arrival on exchange rate volatility is positive and statistically significant, and that the hypothesis that an increase in the number of traders reduces exchange rate volatility is not supported. The novelties of our study consist in documenting that the positive impact of information arrival on volatility is relatively stable across three different exchange rate regimes, and in that the impact is relatively similar for both weekly volatility and weekly realised volatility. It is not given that the former should be the case since exchange rate stabilisation was actively pursued by the central bank in parts of the study period. We also report a case in which undesirable residual properties attained within traditional frameworks are easily removed by applying the log-transformation on volatilities.

Governance and bank valuation

This paper assesses the impact of the ownership structure of banks and shareholder protection laws on bank valuations while controlling for differences in bank regulations. Except in a few countries with very strong shareholder protection laws, banks are not widely held. Rather, families or the State control banks. Furthermore, (i) larger cash-flow rights by the controlling owner boost valuations, (ii) stronger shareholder protection laws increase valuations, and (iii) greater cash-flow rights mitigate the adverse effects of weak shareholder protection laws on valuations. These results suggest that ownership structure is an important mechanism for governing banks.     

Consumer Control and Empowerment: A Primer

This paper introduces consumer empowerment as a promising research area. Going beyond lay wisdom that more control is always better, we outline several hypotheses concerning (a) the factors that influence the perception of empowerment, and (b) the consequences of greater control and the subjective experience of empowerment on consumer satisfaction and confidence.     

A comparison of financial duration models via density forecasts

Using density forecast evaluation techniques, we compare the predictive performance of econometric specifications that have been developed for modeling duration processes in intra-day financial markets. The model portfolio encompasses various variants of the Autoregressive Conditional Duration (ACD) model and recently proposed dynamic factor models. The evaluation is conducted on time series of trade, price and volume durations computed from transaction data of NYSE listed stocks. The results show that simpler approaches perform at least as well as more complex methods. With respect to modeling trade duration processes, standard ACD models successfully account for duration dynamics while none of the models provides an acceptable specification for the conditional duration distribution. We find that the Logarithmic ACD, if based on a flexible innovation distribution, provides a quite robust and useful framework for the modeling of price and volume duration processes.     

Assessing Technical Efficiency of Québec Dairy Farms

The purpose of this paper is twofold. Our first objective is to measure the level of technical efficiency of Québec dairy farms. Our second objective is to gauge the robustness of our results with respect to the selection of a functional form and of a distribution for the inefficiency index. We estimate efficiency frontiers for Cobb-Douglas (C-D), translogarithmic (TL) and generalized Leontief (GL) production functions with half-normal, truncated normal and exponential distributions. Our results, based on likelihood dominance criterion (LDC) indicate that the GL production technology dominates the other two functional forms, and this ranking is robust to changes in the distribution of the inefficiency index. Efficiency scores and ranks are highly correlated for all the functional forms and distributions. The differences in the mean levels of efficiency are statistically significant across functional forms and distributions, although the magnitude of the difference is minuscule. The very high mean level of efficiency and the low standard deviation confirms that Québec dairy farms are very homogenous in terms of getting the most from their inputs. This is not surprising, given that the sector has been very stable policywise and that it has been difficult for dairy farmers to expand. To augment the comparisons, results obtained from data envelopment analysis (DEA), are added to the analysis. In this case, the correlation coefficients between DEA and parametric specifications are found to be very low.     

A general test of technological gap trade theory

Zusammenfassung Eine allgemeine überprüfung der Technologielücke — Hypothese der AuΒenhandelstheorie. — Die in diesem Aufsatz erzielten Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, daΒ industrielle Erfindungen eine besonders wichtige Ursache des internationalen Handels sind. Die statische Querschnittsanalyse dieses Artikels weist darauf hin, daΒ der AuΒenhandel verschiedener OECD-L?nder für die besonders innovativen Industrien weitgehend eine Funktion ihrer technologischen Leistungen ist. Diese wurden mit Hilfe eines Indikators gemessen, der den Output und nicht, wie sonst üblich, den Input der Technologie repr?sentiert. Die Ergebnisse stützen in starkem MaΒe die Neo-Technologie-Hypothese, insbesondere die frühen Ansichten über die technologische Lücke á la Posner, Freeman und Hufbauer. Die hier vorgeführte statische Analyse bietet natürlich keine Erkl?rung für die verschiedenen wichtigeren dynamischen Aspekte, die in der Hypothese der technologischen Lücke implizit enthalten sind. Einige dieser dynamischen Elemente lassen sich jedoch ohne weiteres in die Analyse einbeziehen.

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Résumé Un test général de la théorie de la lacune technologique en commerce extérieur. — Les résultats obtenus dans cet article suggèrent que l’innovation industrielle est un déterminant particulièrement important des échanges internationaux. L’analyse statique de section transversale faite ici indique que pour la plupart des industries ?innovatives? les échanges internationaux des pays individuels de l’OCDE dépendent fortement de leur relative performance ?technologique?. La dernière variable était mesurée en utilisant un indicateur d’output de technologie au lieu des indicateurs normaux d’input de technologie. Les résultats fortement supportent l’hypothèse neotechnologique, particulièrement les études premières sur la lacune de la technologie á la Posner, Freeman et Hufbauer. Naturellement l’analyse statique présentée ici n’offre pas une explication pour les plus importants aspects différents dynamiques qui sont implicitement contenus dans l’hypothèse de la lacune technologique. Cependant il n’y a pas une barrière qui l’empêche d’introduire un de ces éléments dynamiques.

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Resumen Un test general de la hipótesis del ?gap? tecnológico en la teoria del comercio internacional. — Los resultados obtenidos en este trabajo sugieren que la innovation industrial es un factor particularmente importante en el comercio internacional. Por medio de un análisis estático sectoral, se obtiene que para la mayoria de las industrias innovadoras, los resultados del comercio internacional en varios paises de la OCDE dependen en gran medida de sus relativos logros tecnológfcos. Esta ultima variable ha sido medida utilizando un indicador de tecnologia-producto en vez de los más usuales indicadores de tecnologia-factor. Los resultados confirman la hipótesis neo-tecnológica, especialmente las teoria del ?gap? tecnológico de Posner, Freeman, Hufbauer. Este análisis estático no ofrece ninguna explication de otros aspectos más importantes, dinámicos, implicitos en la teoria del ?gap? tecnológico. No obstante, estos factures dinámicos pueden ser introducidos en el análisis.

     

The minimal dominant set is a non-empty core-extension

A set of outcomes for a transferable utility game in characteristic function form is dominant if it is, with respect to an outsider-independent dominance relation, accessible and closed. This outsider-independent dominance relation is restrictive in the sense that a deviating coalition cannot determine the payoffs of those coalitions that are not involved in the deviation. Each game generates a unique minimal (for inclusion) dominant set. This minimal dominant set is non-empty and returns the coalition structure core in case this core is non-empty. We provide an algorithm to find the minimal dominant set.