High‐risk Technology,Legitimacy and Science: The U.S. Search for Energy Policy Consensus

Since the 1980s, a growing body of social scientific research has focused on the organizational character of the institutions that are responsible for the management and functioning of high‐risk technological systems. While there are differences among the social theories of risks that have developed on both sides of the Atlantic, much of the work offers warnings that are relevant to public policy. The warnings have largely been ignored in recent U.S. policy decisions, as illustrated most clearly by the U.S. Energy Act of 2005, which largely overlooks important questions regarding the environmental and technological risks of the technologies favored by the Act. Sociological work suggests that the scientific systems that have been instrumental in the legitimization process of high‐risk technological options of energy, more broadly, should be examined in connection with the societal institutions having responsibility for transparency, safety, and environmental protection.     

Financial contagion and depositor monitoring

This paper analyzes market discipline in a many-bank economy where contagion and bank runs interact. We present a model with differently-informed depositors, where those depositors that are more informed have incentives to monitor banks’ investments. It is shown that when banks are undercapitalized, and the probability of success of the risky asset is low, depositors might prefer a contract that is subject to bank runs in the interim period to a contract that allows banks to gamble with their funds and maintain their investment.The results of the paper emphasize the benefits of private monitoring of banks in order to promote market discipline.     

Why do banks promise to pay par on demand?

We survey the theories on why banks promise to pay par on demand and examine evidence on the conditions under which banks have promised to pay the par value of deposits and banknotes on demand when holding only fractional reserves. The theoretical literature is divided into four strands: liquidity provision; asymmetric information; legal restrictions; and a medium of exchange. We assume that it is not zero cost to make a promise to redeem a liability at par value on demand. If so, then the conditions in the theories that result in par redemption are possible explanations why banks promise to pay par on demand. If the explanation based on customers’ demand for liquidity is correct, payment of deposits at par will be promised when banks hold assets that are illiquid in the short run. If the asymmetric-information explanation based on the difficulty of valuing assets is correct, the marketability of banks’ assets determines whether banks promise to pay par. If the legal restrictions explanation of par redemption is correct, banks will not promise to pay par if they are not required to do so. If the transaction explanation is correct, banks will promise to pay par if the deposits are used in transactions. We examine the history of banking in several countries in different eras: fourth century Athens, medieval Italy, Tokugawa Japan, and free banking and money market mutual funds in the United States. Each of the theories explains some of the observed banking arrangements and none explains all of them.     

Monetary policy and the role of inventory investment

In this article, we develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with sticky prices and inventory investment to explore the relationship between inventories and monetary policy. We use the traditional inventory literature as a basis to motivate this extension of the benchmark model and propose inventories as a factor of production. Within this setting, we test the empirical findings in the literature that, since the mid-1980s, monetary policy changed its target towards the inventory component of GDP. We explore this idea in our theoretical model and conclude through simulations that this is a plausible complementary explanation for the reduction in output volatility that was observed during the Great Moderation period.     

Psychometric properties of the Valencia Scale of Attitudes and Beliefs toward Hypnosis Client version (VSABH-C) in a mexican sample

Quality & Quantity - The study analyzes the psychometric properties of the Client version of the Valencia Scale of Attitudes and Beliefs towards Hypnosis (VSABH-C), in its adaptation for...     

Behavioral Finance in Joseph de la Vega's Confusion de Confusiones

In this paper, we link Joseph de la Vega's work Confusion de Confusiones, written in 1688, with current behavioral finance and propose that Vega be considered the first precursor of modern behavioral finance. In addition to describing excessive trading, overreaction and underreaction, and the disposition effect, Vega vividly portrays how investors behaved 300 years ago and includes interesting documentation on investor biases, such as herding, overconfidence, and regret aversion.