Employment changes, the structure of adjustment costs, and plant size

In this paper, we analyze the pattern of employment adjustment using a rich panel of Norwegian plants. The data suggest that the frequency of episodes of zero net employment changes is inversely related to plant size. We develop and estimate a simple “q” model of labor demand, allowing for the presence of fixed, linear and quadratic components of adjustment costs. The econometric evidence supports the existence of purely fixed components, unrelated to plant size. As a result, the range of inaction is wider for smaller plants. The quadratic component of costs is also always important. In most specifications fixed costs are higher for employment contractions. The quadratic component is higher during employment contractions compared to expansions for small plants, while this is not true for larger plants.     

Competition in taxes and performance requirements for foreign direct investment

Tax incentives offered to attract firms engaged in foreign direct investment are often tied to performance requirements such as domestic content restrictions or adherence to environmental standards. The tax competition literature has repeatedly shown that competition between municipalities for mobile firms tends to drive taxes to low levels. One would expect a comparable result for burdensome performance requirements. Despite this, the evidence suggests that while taxes have indeed been driven down, performance requirements are as popular as ever. We explain this seeming conundrum by showing that in the presence of spillovers, binding performance requirements can act as a coordination device for firms. In equilibrium, municipalities choose performance requirements, which maximize joint surplus from investment. Competition between municipalities then transfers this surplus to firms via tax subsidies.     

Redistribution as a selection device

This paper studies the role of the wealth distribution for the market selection of entrepreneurs when agents differ in talent. It argues that the redistribution of initial endowments can increase an economy's surplus because more talented individuals get credit for their risky investment projects. Moreover, the redistribution of initial endowments may lead to a Pareto-improvement although all agents are non-satiable. An agent's entrepreneurial ability is his private information and there is moral hazard in production. I find conditions such that unproductive rich entrepreneurs crowd out productive poor ones on the capital market. Then redistribution of initial endowments may lead to a new equilibrium where market participants are better informed about the entrepreneurs’ ability. The new equilibrium is characterized by (i) the selection of better entrepreneurs, (ii) a higher riskless rate of return on capital, (iii) lower repayments of successful entrepreneurs to their creditors and (iv) the fact that all agents are better off.     

中国股票市场市盈率的检验分析

市盈率高低是我国股市的关注焦点之一。本文在比较国外证券市场的市盈率之后认为我国的市盈率偏高。这种推测得到我们理论研究和模型结论的支持,我国股市市盈率由于系统风险的掩藏、股票初始发行价偏高和股市投机性等因素而呈现较高的倍数。从2004年我国股市市盈率开始下降,逐渐接近我们模型的估计值。此外,我们实证分析认为,市盈率的高低与GDP增长、股票收益波动和国有股比重等因素不存在严格的变动关系,市盈率呈现出一种随机游走的态势,市盈率不是稳定的区间值,而是一系列的动态的时间序列变量值。     

可转换债券市场价格与其基准股票市盈率关系初探

本文试图探讨可转换债券市场价格与其基准股票市盈率间的关系。从理论上分析,市盈率作为一个较易获得的市场指标,包含了上市公司增长机会(growth opportunity)的信息,反映了投资者对未来股价上升的预期。同时可转换债券的价格对其基准股票价格未来上升的可能性十分敏感,因此市盈率与可转换债券市场价格间应存在一定关系。但根据对上海证券交易所转债的实证分析得到:目前我国转债的市场价格与其基准股票市盈率间的关系并不显著,因而市盈率指标不能作为判断转债投资价值的有效依据。     

The contracting value of tainted reports in cost reduction settings

While cost accounting is a well-developed discipline with a rich institutional past, it is criticized for being manipulable. This criticism is due, in part, to the existence of multiple, yet equally accepted cost allocation procedures or cost estimation techniques. Employing a principal-agent model, cost accounting is modeled as a menu of alternative methods which, conditional on agent effort, produce noisy, unbiased and independently distributed (i.e., equally defensible) measures from which a single realization is selected ex post as the report used to contract with the agent. Assuming that the report does not indicate which method produced it, the report modeled is “tainted” in that the lowest (most favorable to the agent) outcome is reported, where the “amount” of tainting corresponds to the menu's size. The paper identifies bright-line conditions where the principal's expected net payoff is independent of the amount of tainting, demonstrating that tainting does not necessarily affect the report's incentive value.     

On the impact of leverage constraints on asset prices and trading volume

Abstract. Researchers have used stylized facts on asset prices and trading volume in stock markets (in particular, the mean reversion of asset returns and the correlations between trading volume, price changes and price levels) to support theories where agents are not rational expected utility maximizers. This paper shows that this empirical evidence is in fact consistent with a standard infinite horizon – perfect information – expected utility economy where some agents face leverage constraints similar to those found in todays financial markets. In addition, and in sharp contrast to the theories above, we explain some qualitative differences that are observed in the price-volume relation on stock and on futures markets. We consider a continuous-time economy where agents maximize the integral of their discounted utility from consumption under both budget and leverage constraints. Building on the work by Vila and Zariphopoulou (1997), we find a closed form solution, up to a negative constant, for the equilibrium prices and demands in the region of the state space where the constraint is non-binding. We show that, at the equilibrium, stock holdings volatility as well as its ratio to stock price volatility are increasing functions of the stock price and interpret this finding in terms of the price-volume relation. We would like to thank the editor and two anonimous referees for valuable substantive comments. Our gratitude also to Franklin Allen, Kerry Back, Domenico Cuoco, Xavier Freixas, Sanford Grossman, Michel Habib, Lutz Hendricks, Richard Kihlstrom, Fernando Restoy, Mary Thomson, Jean-Luc Vila, participants to seminars at Birkbeck College, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, ESSEC, HEC, IAE, INSEAD, London Business School, London School of Economics, McGill, Michigan, National University of Singapore, Pompeu Fabra, North Carolina, Washington-St-Louis, Wharton, the Jornadas de Economía Financiera BBV, and the Meetings of the Society for Economic Dynamics and Control and the American Finance Association. Special thanks are due to Süleyman Basak for his enthusiastic support and many helpful suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the BBV and Caja de Madrid Foundations and CREF (both authors) and of the Spanish Ministry of Education under DGICYT grant no. PB93-0388 (first author).     

IMF concern for reputation and conditional lending failure: Theory and empirics

In this paper we suggest that the dual role played by the IMF, as a creditor and as a monitor of economic reforms, might explain the lack of credibility of the Fund threat of sanctioning non-compliance with conditionality. Specifically, we show that the IMF's desire to preserve its reputation as a good monitor may distort its lending decisions towards some laxity. Moreover, such distortionary incentives may be exacerbated by the length of the relationship between a country and the Fund. Estimating a dynamic panel of 53 middle-income countries, for the period 1982–2001, we find that a longer relationship does increase IMF disbursements.     

Do exporters have anything to learn from foreign multinationals?

International technology diffusion through FDI has been examined mainly at macro or industry level whereas micro studies have been concerned mostly with spillovers. Using recent data on the UK manufacturing firms, this paper uncovers evidence that acquisition FDI is an important channel of direct technology transfer from foreign multinationals to domestic exporters. This finding accords with the prediction of the internalisation theory of FDI which postulates that multinational firms transfer a range of intangible proprietary assets to their affiliates.     

A general equilibrium analysis of software development: Implications of copyright protection and contract enforcement

We develop a general equilibrium model to study the implications of a legal environment on the organization of software production. We show that contract enforcement determines the organizational mode (i.e., in-house versus outsourcing) of customized software development while copyright protection affects both packaged software as well as customized software development. We obtain some testable results: when copyright protection is weak, only customized software will be developed; when copyright protection is strong, both customized software and packaged software will be developed; environment changes in one software market affect the equilibrium in the other software market.