The Effects of Screening and Monitoring on Credit Rationing of SMEs

In this paper, we seek to empirically assess which determinants of the capability and incentives of banks to screen and monitor firms are significant in explaining credit rationing to Italian SMEs. After testing for the presence of non‐random selection bias and the potential endogeneity of some determinants of interest, the probit model results we obtain suggest that the average banking size and the multiple banking relationship phenomenon are statistically significant factors affecting credit rationing, presumably through their impact on the aforementioned banks' capability and incentives. Other potential determinants of banks' incentives to monitor and screen, such as local banking competition and firm' capacity to collateralize, are never significant. However, when we split the sample according to the level of competition in credit markets, we find that the estimated marginal effects of all significant determinants of interest are larger in absolute value than those obtained when using the whole sample.     

Adjustment Costs,Inventories and Output

This paper analyzes the optimal adjustment strategy of an inventory‐holding firm facing price‐ and quantity‐adjustment costs in an inflationary environment. The model nests both the original menu‐cost model that allows production to be costlessly adjusted, and the later model that includes price‐ and quantity‐adjustment costs, but rules out inventory holdings. It is shown that the firm's optimal adjustment strategy may involve stockouts. At low inflation rates, output is inversely related to the inflation rate, and the length of time demand is satisfied increases with the demand elasticity but decreases with the storage cost and the real interest rate.     

Estimating the Probability of Informed Trading

Using a new empirical model, I estimate the probability of trades being generated by privately informed traders. Inference is drawn on a trade‐by‐trade basis using data samples from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The modeling setup facilitates in‐depth analysis of the estimated probability of informed trading at the intraday level and for stocks with different levels of trading activity. The most important empirical results are: (a) the intradaily pattern of the inferred probability of informed trading is highly correlated with the intradaily pattern of observed quoted spreads, (b) differences in the magnitude of quoted spreads across volume categories are not exclusively related to differences in the level of informed trading, and (c) private information is incorporated faster in the quotes for high‐volume stocks than in the quotes for low‐volume stocks.     

Are Venture Capitalists a Catalyst for Innovation?

In this paper we test two hypotheses concerning the presence of innovation in venture capital investments and the growth of innovative venture backed firms. To examine these hypotheses we considered sample of 37 Italian venture backed firms that went public on the Italian Stock Exchange between 1995 and 2004 and by a statistical matching procedure we picked 37 twin firms among the non‐venture backed IPOs for the same period. Our evidence shows that innovation is an important factor during the selection phase but once the investment is made, the company does not promote continued innovation and concentrates all efforts to improve other economic and managerial aspects.     

Some Evidence on the Adjustment of Producer Prices*

We document producer price adjustment using a low‐inflation micro price dataset. On average 24% of prices adjust each month, with an average increase/decrease of 6%. Producer prices adjust more frequently than consumer prices, but their size of adjustment is typically smaller. Sectoral heterogeneity in the frequency of price adjustment is strongly related to heterogeneity in the cost structure. Fluctuations in aggregate producer price inflation occur to a large extent through variation in the relative share of upward and downward price adjustment.     

RULE CHANGES AND UNCERTAINTY IN DISCRIMINATORY AND UNIFORM PRICE AUCTIONS

The auction literature indicates that uncertainty about the value of auctioned goods increases underpricing in discriminatory price auctions. Such uncertainty has a smaller effect on uniform price auctions because the pricing rule aggregates bidders' information. We find that uncertainty resulting from inexperience with an auction mechanism has similar effects. Using initial public offering (IPO) data from Japan and Israel, we find that average underpricing increases temporarily in Japan's discriminatory price auctions after changes in the auction rules, which suggests that bidders reduce their bids in response to uncertainty. Underpricing in Israel's uniform price auctions is not affected by rule changes.     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

Partial Horizontal Inequity Orderings: A Non‐parametric Approach*

We provide a partial ordering view of horizontal inequity (HI), based on the Lorenz criterion, associated with different post‐tax income distributions and a (bistochastic) non‐parametric estimated benchmark distribution. As a consequence, several measures consistent with the Lorenz criterion can be rationalized. In addition, we establish the so‐called HI transfer principle, which imposes a normative minimum requirement that any HI measure must satisfy. Our proposed HI ordering is consistent with this principle. Moreover, we adopt a cardinal view to decompose the total effect of a tax system into a welfare gain caused by HI‐free income redistribution and a welfare loss caused by HI, without any additive decomposable restriction on the indices. Hence, more robust tests can be applied. Other decompositions in the literature are seen as particular cases.     

Strategy-proofness in many-to-one matching problems

We search forstrategy-proof solutions in the context of (many-to-one) matching problems (Gale and Shapley, 1962). In this model, whenever the firms can hire as many workers as they want (the capacities are unlimited) the stable set is a singleton. There exists aPareto efficient, individually rational, andstrategy-proof matching rule if and only if the capacities are unlimited. Furthermore, whenever the capacities unlimited, the matching rule which selects the unique stable matching is the only matching rule that isPareto efficient, individually rational, andstrategy-proof.     

露天边坡工程及FLAC数值分析

以高西沟露天煤矿的西北边帮作为研究对象,运用FLAC3D数值模拟软件,经过数值计算得到边坡安全系数为1.57,其与工程类比法计算得到的数值差不多,知该数值分析方法不仅能快速、准确的算出边坡的稳定性系数,还能够形象的描绘边坡的滑移临界场,是一种有效的边坡稳定性分析的方法。