RETESTING THE UNCERTAINTY EFFECT USING LOTTERIES WITH REAL PRODUCTS AND MONEY

In the current study, several experiments re‐examine the uncertainty effect using lotteries that include real products, monetary outcomes and electronic gift cards in a between‐subjects design. The study also takes the selling position into consideration, in addition to the buying position considered by all previous works on the uncertainty effect. The results indicate that for all types of lotteries, the bids are higher than the bids for the worst possible realization. These findings are consistent with the internality axiom and do not support the uncertainty effect.     

Energy demand and interfuel substitution in the United Kingdom

This paper sets out to examine the demand for energy in the United Kingdom. All energy sources are demonstrated to be substitutable. Coal is the most price responsive with natural gas, oil and electrical energy following. Moreover, when the issue of stability is considered, the suggestion is that the demand for coal, oil, natural gas and electrical energy have remained virtually constant over the past three decades.     

The effect of automated teller machines on demand deposits: An empirical analysis

The banking system has experienced rapid and significant technological changes in recent years, including automated teller machines (ATMs), automated clearing houses, point of sale systems, telephone transfers, automatic billpayer accounts, and credit cards. The total effect of these innovations on money demand has been the subject of some empirical research; however, the individual effect of most of these innovations has not been estimated. This article attempts to partially bridge the gap in the empirical literature by providing empirical evidence relating to the effect of ATMs on demand deposits.I would like to thank, without implicating, S. M. Miller and an anonymous referee of this journal for helpful comments.     

Cable Service and Its Implicit Marginal Valuation

The objective is to estimate the implicit marginal value of channel offerings by cable systems in the USA. Hedonic analysis is a convenient framework in which to explore the relationship between the price of cable service and the channels offered by a cable system. Two separate hedonic equations are estimated-- one for the price of analog cable service and one for the price of digital cable service. With regard to the price of analog cable service, the implicit marginal valuation is statistically significant and positive for just 15 of 106 channel offerings and negative for seven channels. For the price of digital cable service, the implicit marginal valuation is statistically significant and positive for just eleven of 105 channel offerings and negative for five channels. The results suggest that a subscriber's utility would be enhanced by a pricing structure different from the typical approach used by cable systems today of offering a bundled package consisting of several channels. One alternative is to allow consumers to subscribe to just those programming services for which they have a positive implicit marginal value (i.e. an a la carte pricing structure).     

Interest rate determination in a high inflation economy

This study examines the importance of the liquidity effect, inflation uncertainty, and supply shocks in determining interest rates in a high inflation economy (Israel). The results show that a significant liquidity effect exists when it is measured by a broad definition of money. The vanishing liquidity effect, found in studies of the U.S., may be the result of the use of M, to measure it. There is some support for the hypothesis that the strength of the liquidity effect is negatively related to the level of inflation. Interest rates are negatively (and significantly) affected by inflation uncertainty, and positively affected by supply shocks.     

Are the markets for financial assets efficient? : Evidence for the USA, 1974–1988

The analysis in this paper addresses the efficient markets hypothesis as it pertains to the markets for financial assets. Both weak form efficiency and semistrong form efficiency are investigated for three different financial assets - common stocks, preferred stocks and government bonds. For these assets the markets are indicated to be weak form efficient based on monthly data covering the period January 1974 to June 1988. In the case of semistrong form efficiency, the financial assets markets are efficient with respect to the supply of money for the period after October 1979 but not before. This anomaly is attributed to the different procedures used by the Federal Open Market Committee between the two periods for controlling the growth rate of the money supply.     

The Search for a Critical Concentration Revisited

This paper examines the issue of whether there is a four-firm critical concentration ratio above which industries earn supranormal profits. A statistical test is employed to investigate the functional stability of the estimated relationship. Although the initial results indicate a range in the concentration ratio of between 0.48 and 0.55 over which the functional relationship destabilizes, additional analysis fails to identify a clear break in the concentration-profitability relationship. It can only be concluded that a critical concentration does not appear to exist.     

The Change in Productive Efficiency in Telecommunications in the United States

The question addressed here is whether the adoption of incentive regulation, which has become an important regulatory tool in the telecommunications industry in the USA, has resulted in a change in the technical efficiency of local exchange carriers in the USA. After providing an overview of the nature of incentive regulation, a methodology for measuring technical efficiency and its change is introduced. This is a multiple-output/multiple-input distance function approach to measuring technical efficiency. The results of implementing this approach for 19 local exchange carriers for the 1988-2001 period indicate that in the production of local service, intrastate toll/access service, and interstate access to local loops, there was no change in technical efficiency between the 1988-1990 period and the 1991- 2001 period, something that incentive regulation was specifically designed to promote.     

Taxation,inflation, and the terms of trade

The interaction between changes in the rate of inflation and tax systems can have potential terms of trade effects. An open-economy macroeconomic model is presented in which such effects are analyzed. The asset menu consists of money, corporate capital whose nominal income is subject to taxation, and consumer durables whose return is tax exempt. This may be contrasted with the conventional menu of money and capital and/or bonds. Durables are imported. An increase in the rate of inflation then implies that the terms of trade of the country in question deteriorates in the long run.