FDIC Coverage on bank failures: Cointegration analysis using annual data, 1942–91

The present study empirically investigates whether in the U.S. federal government-provided deposit insurance, which was intended to prevent runs on banks and to protect depositors of modest means, has acted to induce increased bank failures. This issue has been investigated earlier, but only with regression analysis, and it remains unresolved since results vary sharply from one study to the next. By contrast, the present study uses cointegration techniques to investigate this problem. The cointegration analysis finds strong evidence of a cointegrating relationship between the bank failure rate and the extent of central government-provided deposit insurance, as well as other variables. Maximum eigenvalue and trace test results, along with normalized cointegrating vectors and likelihood ratio test results, are provided for examination.     

Quasi-cournot behavior in a multimarket,multiplant setting

This paper introduces multimarket selling options, capacity constraints and quasi-Cournot conjectures into oligopolistic rivalry. It is shown that increased output responses between rivals that are producing below capacity will effect output reductions for all markets, but that increased output responses between rivals that are producing at capacity will effect an output increase in at least one market and might even result in a capacity extension and output increases in all markets.     

Costs of adjustment to climate change

The present paper argues that the costs of climate change are primarily adjustment costs. The central result is that climate change will reduce welfare whenever it occurs more rapidly than the rate at which capital stocks (interpreted broadly to include natural resource stocks) would naturally adjust through market processes. The costs of climate change can be large even when lands are close to their climatic optimum, or evenly distributed both above and below that optimum.     

If you play well they will come—and vice versa: bidirectional causality in major‐league baseball

The Granger‐causality test is applied to the annual attendance and win‐percentage data for 29 major‐league teams. It is shown that bidirectional causality exists for these teams and that there are some essential differences between the original 10 of 16 franchises that comprised the majors in 1903 and the six that relocated between 1953 and 1961. Some differences and some similarities are also seen in the parameter estimates for both blocs of teams, the relocated teams, and seven long‐lived expansion franchises. Finally, the parameter estimates are manipulated to yield noise‐free equilibrium estimates for both attendance and performance. In tandem, these two sets of estimates provide fodder for speculation as to the futures of each of the extant 23 franchises considered here. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Donald D. Stull and Michael J. Broadway. Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004. xviii + 172 pp. ISBN 0-534-61303-9, $25.95 (paper).

In the late 1980s Donald Stull and Michael Broadway launcheda remarkable collaborative project on the contemporary meatpackingindustry, on which Slaughterhouse Blues is based. With researchfunded in part by a massive Ford Foundation grant, Stull andBroadway brought a basketball team of social scientists to smalltowns in the Midwest where today’s huge packinghousesare located. The astounding productivity of this group runsto more than fifty articles in journals     

A Preliminary Investigation into the Effects of the Federal Override of State Usury Ceilings on the Supply of Mortgage Funds by FSLIC-Insured S&Ls in New York and New Jersey

Examined is the economic theory that restrictive usury ceilings reduce the supply of residential mortgage funds and tighten terms of the mortgage instrument. Studied are the mortgage policies adopted by New York and New Jersey FSLIC-insured S&Ls during periods when there were restrictive usury ceilings and when these usury ceilings were removed. The results clearly confirm the theory that effective elimination of usury ceilings increases the supply of mortgage funds and also liberalizes the terms of the mortgage instrument.     

Market structure implications of export-price uncertainty

This paper considers the profit-seeking firm that has the opportunity to export, as a price taker, to an uncertain rest-of-the-world market. When that firm competes domestically as an oligopolist the competitive export option can impact on both the firm and its domestic competitiors. The latter conjecture is explored and the resulting inferences are offered as a possible explanation for the market structures that tend to evolve in international markets.