N‐FIRM OLIGOPOLY WITH GENERAL ISO‐ELASTIC DEMAND

In this note oligopoly with iso‐elastic demand is analysed. Unlike previous studies we consider general iso‐elastic demand rather than the case of unit elasticity. An n‐firm Nash‐Cournot equilibrium for the case of heterogeneous constant marginal costs is derived. The main result is a closed‐form solution that shows the dependency of the equilibrium on the elasticity of demand and the share of industry costs. The result has applications to a wide range of areas in oligopoly theory by allowing comparisons across markets with different elasticities of demand.     

The impact of regulation on market risk

While it is crucial to understand the impact of regulatory changes on market risk, the literature does not show how risk responds to expected regulatory changes that are specifically designed to change risk. Our paper fills this gap by providing a detailed study of one such case. Using both a sample of privatized U.K. companies, and U.K. and U.S. control portfolios, between 1993 and 2000, we show (both for the single-factor market model and the three-factor Fama-French model) that the observed changes in market risk are significant and consistent with theory.     

Does corporate social responsibility reduce financial distress risk?

This paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the level of financial distress risk (FDR). Using a sample of 1201 US-listed firms during 1991–2012, our results indicate that firms with higher CSR levels have lower FDR, suggesting that a better CSR performance makes firms more creditworthy and have better access to financing, which is rewarded with less financial defaults. This finding is robust to using alternative proxies of FDR, to controlling for potential endogeneity, and is mainly driven by the community, diversity, employee relations, and environmental dimensions of CSR. Moreover, this relationship is more prevalent in firms with strong governance mechanisms and high product market competition. It is also more exacerbated for less distressed firms and during non-crisis periods. Overall, our findings suggest that the adoption of CSR practices comes with less distress and default risks, likely leading to a more attractive corporate environment, better financial stability and more crisis-resilient economies.     

Modelling demand for lotto using a novel method of correcting for endogeneity

Modelling lottery sales as a function of the mean, standard deviation and skewness of the probability distribution of returns potentially gives insights into how the design of a game could be modified to maximise net revenue. But use of OLS is problematic because the level of sales itself affects values of the moments (and insufficient instruments are available for IV regression). We draw on the concept of a rational expectations equilibrium, developing a new regression model which corrects for endogeneity where the causal impact of the dependent variable on the right-hand side variables is deterministic. We apply the model to data on lotto sales from Spain. Using the Spanish data, we show that results provide more reliable guidance to lottery agencies because accounting for endogeneity leads to significantly different results from OLS and these results have superior performance in out-of-sample forecasting of sales. More generally, results prove consistent with the Friedman-Savage explanation of why people buy lottery tickets and with evidence from racetrack data that ‘bettors love skewness’.     

Location and competition in retail banking

We investigate the impact of banking deregulation during the 1990s on consumer welfare. We estimate a spatial model of consumer demand for retail bank deposits that explicitly accounts for consumer disutility from distance traveled. This is important given the substantial changes in banks' branch networks observed in the data. Our model indicates that cross-price elasticities between banks whose branches are close to consumers (‘close’ banks) are larger than those between ‘far’ banks and more than double the cross-price elasticity of ‘close’ banks with respect to ‘far’ banks. We distinguish between thrifts and other banks and find that within-thrift competitive effects are stronger than within-bank effects or those between thrifts and banks. We use our estimates to predict the effect of changes in market structure on consumer welfare following the branching deregulation of the Riegle–Neal Act of 1994. Our results indicate that the median household gained around $60 per year from the changes. Approximately two thirds of the gains come from within-market changes in market structure. The gains were greater in markets with high initial numbers of banks than elsewhere.     

Do private firm valuations contain incremental information content over routine analyst valuations?

In this study, we seek to investigate whether private expert valuations commissioned for specific transactions outside the exchange contain incremental information content over public analyst valuations published routinely by investment houses. First, we find that public valuations are based to a larger extent on financial statements and market quotes, whereas private valuations tend to be based on other, non-public information. Second, we show that investors’ response to both public and private valuations is cautious in the short-run as well as in the long-run. Third, we provide evidence that despite the fact that private valuations have the advantage of time, human resources, and better access to non-public information, they do not provide different results than those obtained from public valuations. We conclude that while private valuations may be captured as more accurate and reliable, their superiority over public valuations is questionable at best.     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

出口商信用证风险影响因素分析——基于交易费用理论

本文从交易费用理论角度对信用证风险的影响因素进行了分析,认为买卖双方的信息不对称和信用证本身的制度缺陷引起的机会主义行为是引起风险的因素,提出了出口商可以通过事前防范和事后救济手段来降低交易费用.     

Did US safeguards resuscitate Harley-Davidson in the 1980s?

This paper examines US safeguards applied to the motorcycle market in the 1980s. After receiving temporary protection by means of a maximum tariff of over 45%, Harley-Davidson sales recovered dramatically. Simulations, based on structural demand and supply estimates, indicate that while safeguard tariffs did benefit Harley-Davidson, they only account for a fraction of its increased sales. This is primarily because consumers perceived that Harley-Davidson and Japanese large motorcycles were poorly matched substitutes for each other. Our results provide little evidence that safeguard provisions triggered restructuring in Harley-Davidson.