Stock exchange mergers and market efficiency

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of stock exchange mergers on the degree of informational efficiency. For this purpose, we apply the generalized spectral shape test for the martingale difference hypothesis to the stock returns before and after the 31 domestic and cross-border mergers completed from 1997 to 2011. The test is conducted with moving subsample windows, allowing us to detect the periods of (in)efficiency, and thus to conduct a comparative analysis for pre-merger and post-merger periods. We find that higher levels of efficiency are less frequent than lower levels of efficiency after a stock exchange merger. We also find that the impact on the level of efficiency depends on a range of merger characteristics such as the level of development, size, geographical diversification and industrial diversification of stock exchange.     

Embracing invention similarity for the measurement of vertically overlapping claims

ABSTRACT

Clear and well-defined patent rights can incentivize innovation by granting monopoly rights to the inventor for a limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention. However, with cumulative innovation, when a product draws from intellectual property held across multiple firms (including fragmented intellectual property or patent thickets), contracting failures may lead to suboptimal economic outcomes. However, an alternative theory, developed by a variety of scholars, contends that patent thickets have a more ambiguous effect. Researchers have developed several measures to gauge the extent and impact of cumulative innovation and the various channels of patent thickets. This paper contends that mis-measurement may contribute to the incoherence and overall lack of consensus within the patent thickets literature. Specifically, the literature is missing a precise measure of vertically overlapping claims. We propose a new measure of vertically overlapping claims that incorporates invention similarity to more precisely identify inventive overlap. The measure defined in this paper will enable more accurate measurement, and allow for novel economic research on cumulative innovation, fragmentation in intellectual property, and patent thickets within and across all patent jurisdictions.     

Optimal search auctions

We study the design of profit maximizing single unit auctions under the assumption that the seller needs to incur costs to contact prospective bidders and inform them about the auction. With independent bidders’ types and possibly interdependent valuations, the seller's problem can be reduced to a search problem in which the surplus is measured in terms of virtual utilities minus search costs. Compared to the socially efficient mechanism, the optimal mechanism features fewer participants, longer search conditional on the same set of participants, and inefficient sequence of entry.     

The Phillips Curve, the IS Curve and Monetary Transmission: Evidence for the US and the Euro Area

In this paper we assess the empirical performance of commonlyused empirical specifications of the baseline New Keynesianmodel for the US and the euro area. We estimate standard specificationsof the model and extended specifications also including non-standarddeterminants of aggregate supply and demand. The results suggestthat based on the standard specifications it is often not possibleto establish a significant link between the monetary policyinstrument and output and inflation. Based on the extended specificationsof the model, which take into account the significant effectof commodity prices on inflation and of house prices on theoutput gap, we are generally able to restore a significant monetarytransmission channel. (JEL E3, E52, C22)     

Predictors of registered nurses' willingness to remain in nursing

A major question about the adequacy of the future supply of nurses is how many will stay in the profession. The relationship between scheduling and propensity to stay or leave the nursing profession was examined in this study. This analysis suggests there are definite characteristics of the work schedules that can influence a nurse's inclination to stay or leave the profession. This is not simply a question of "overwork," but of matching work schedules and hours as closely as possible to employee expectations. This suggests management needs to find a way to pay attention when nurses request changes in hours. The mere fact of changing schedules will not solve the nursing shortage, but it is one action within the management control of any organization employing nurses that could have a positive effect on retention.     

Co-optimization of enhanced oil recovery and carbon sequestration

In this paper, we present an economic analysis of CO₂-enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This technique entails injection of CO₂ into mature oil fields in a manner that reduces the oil's viscosity, thereby enhancing the rate of extraction. As part of this process, significant quantities of CO₂ remain sequestered in the reservoir. If CO₂ emissions are regulated, oil producers using EOR should therefore be able to earn revenues from sequestration as well as from oil production. We develop a theoretical framework that analyzes the dynamic co-optimization of oil extraction and CO₂ sequestration, through the producer's choice of the fraction of CO₂ in the injection stream at each moment. We find that the optimal fraction of CO₂ is likely to decline monotonically over time, and reach zero before the optimal termination time. Numerical simulations, based on an ongoing EOR project in Wyoming, confirm this result. We also find that cumulative sequestration is less responsive to the carbon tax than to the oil price. Only at very high taxes does a tradeoff between revenues from oil output and sequestration arise.     

Explaining Foreign Holdings of Asia's Debt Securities: The Feldstein–Horioka Paradox Revisited*

In this paper, we find that home bias is still present in all economies and regions, especially in the case of short‐term debt securities, but that there are substantial variations among economies and regions in the strength of home bias, with the eurozone economies, the USA and developing Asia showing relatively weak home bias and advanced Asia, especially Japan, showing relatively strong home bias. We then examine trends over time in foreign holdings of debt securities and find that capital has been flowing from the USA and the eurozone economies to both advanced Asia (especially Japan) and developing Asia, and that foreign holdings of debt securities have been increasing in advanced as well as developing Asia but for different reasons. The main reason in the case of advanced Asia (especially Japan) appears to be higher risk‐adjusted returns, whereas the main reason in the case of developing Asia appears to be the growth of debt securities markets combined with relatively weak home bias and (in the case of short‐term securities) lower exchange rate volatility. Finally, we find that since the global financial crisis, foreign holdings of debt securities have declined (i.e. that home bias has strengthened) in all economies and regions except developing Asia, where they have increased (except for a temporary decline in 2008) but where their share is still much lower than the optimal share warranted by the capital asset pricing market model.     

PEOPLING THE VICTORIAN GOLDFIELDS: FROM BOOM TO BUST, 1851–1901

Victoria experienced a surge of migration after the discovery of gold in 1851. I explore the social and geographic background of migrants lured to the colony by opportunities opened up by gold mining. When alluvial gold was exhausted, the skills of migrants enabled them to exploit the more difficult deep lead and quartz reef gold deposits and to establish cities and towns. Urban growth was encouraged by high marriage and birth rates in the 1860s. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century goldfields communities generally suffered economic and demographic declines.