Financial Instruments and Promotional Banking in the EU are Growing — But is this Justified?

Institutions and the European Investment Bank are at the forefront of EU investment policy. Their role is expanding and it is now a widely-held position that an improvement in the economy will not eliminate the need for their intervention. The proposals for the 2021–2027 MFF launch more financial instruments and present ‘InvestEU’ as a larger more powerful version of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). However, promotional banking is often misunderstood and so is the actual size of promotional banking in Europe in which InvestEU will operate.     

Multidimensional mechanism design: Revenue maximization and the multiple-good monopoly

The seller of N distinct objects is uncertain about the buyer's valuation for those objects. The seller's problem, to maximize expected revenue, consists of maximizing a linear functional over a convex set of mechanisms. A solution to the seller's problem can always be found in an extreme point of the feasible set. We identify the relevant extreme points and faces of the feasible set. We provide a simple algebraic procedure to determine whether a mechanism is an extreme point. We characterize the mechanisms that maximize revenue for some well-behaved distribution of buyer's valuations.     

The convergence of equilibrium strategies of approximating signaling games

Summary For a class of infinite signaling games, the perfect Bayesian equilibrium strategies of finite approximating games converge to equilibrium strategies of the infinite game. This proves the existence of perfect Bayesian equilibrium for that class of games. It is well known that in general, equilibria may not exist in infinite signaling games.I am very grateful to Karl Iorio with whom I derived most of the results in this paper. I am solely responsible for any remaining errors. I am also grateful to Robert Anderson, Debra Aron, Eddie Dekel, Raymond Deneckere, Michael Kirscheneiter, Steven Matthews, Roger Myerson, Daniel Vincent and Robert Weber for comments on previous drafts of this paper.     

Oil risk contracts,business conduct and performance patterns: Data panel analysis

Using the economic and financial performance data of international companies for the exploration, and exploration–extraction (E&E) of oil, as well as the patterns of institutional situation and orientation with the government market and national oil companies or NOCs that receive project offers, we analyze the institutional development and behavior patterns by type of E&E contract, following the strategic actor approach, or the so-called agency theory. Additionally, in light of Mexico's energy reform being implemented between 2015 and 2019, we analyzed the types of license contracts compared to those for production and shared profit. Subsequently, it was determined-through panel data methods in the analysis of 17 companies between 2005 and 2015-that global companies present bigger yields and commitments compared to specialized companies, confirmed by their net income and returns on equity or ROE.     

Multi-product capacitated facility location problem with general production and building costs

This research introduces the multi-product capacitated facility location problem with general production and building costs (MP-CFLPGC). The MP-CFLPGC extends previous problems found in the literature by including multiple products and general production and building cost functions that allow the modeling of different behaviors like economies of scale and congestion. The MP-CFLPGC is formulated as a mixed integer linear program (MILP). To evaluate the performance of the proposed formulation we analyze the results of a commercial optimizer on a set of 288 randomly generated test instances that resemble the Colombian cement industry supply chain. After one hour the optimizer achieved an optimality gap of 1.0 % or less in 55 % out of the 288 test instances. On average the optimality gap was 3.57 %. Additionally, we propose a randomized mathematical-programming-based heuristic for the test instances where the MILP formulation presents significantly high optimality gaps.     

Structural shocks and dynamic elasticities in a long memory model of the US gasoline retail market

A structural multivariate long memory model of the US gasoline market is employed to disentangle structural shocks and to estimate the own-price elasticity of gasoline demand. Our main empirical findings are: (1) there is strong evidence of nonstationarity and mean reversion in the real price of gasoline and in gasoline consumption; (2) accounting for the degree of persistence present in the data is essential to assess the responses of these two variables to structural shocks; (3) the contributions of the different supply and demand shocks to fluctuations in the gasoline market vary across frequency ranges; and (4) long memory makes available an interesting range of convergent possibilities for gasoline demand elasticities. Our estimates suggest that after a change in prices, consumers undertake a few measures to reduce consumption in the short- and medium-run but are reluctant to implement major changes in their consumption habits.     

When is escalation of commitment unstoppable in group settings? An iterative economic modeling approach to unveil the dark side of group decision-making

Escalation of commitment (EOC) has been usually studied from a psychological lens, and only recently have scholars approached EOC from an economic perspective. We contribute to this by focusing on iterative decision-making in group settings with a game theory approach. We study how the group members' strategic interaction may result in continuing failing courses of action. Drawing on the Byzantine generals' problem, our model considers an iterative decision-making process where committee participants vote based on private information to escalate or not. Our article demonstrates that if decision-makers reset their beliefs based on the committee's previous decision, then EOC becomes perpetual.     

Gender differences in positive perceptions,anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities: a logistic regression analysis

This study explores gender differences in positive perceptions, anxiety, and depression among mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities (IDs). We examined the relationship between these variables and certain characteristics of both the child (age and severity of disability) and the parents (age, educational level, and employment status). A sample of 60 mother/father couples who had children with IDs completed the Positive Contributions Scale to measure their positive perceptions, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale to assess their level of anxiety and depression. Bivariate analyses were used to determine differences between fathers and mothers as regards their positive perceptions and levels of anxiety and depression. A logistic regression model was then applied to identify which of the variables might be significant predictors of the gender differences observed among parents. Both mothers and fathers had positive perceptions of their children with IDs that co-existed with symptoms of anxiety and depression, with scores being higher among mothers. The predictive analysis of gender showed that individual variables (such as the employment status of both parents) may explain these differences.     

Risk averse retail pricing with robust demand forecasting

Good demand estimates are the key to effective pricing decision-making. However, they are subject to a high degree of uncertainty due to various factors that are unpredictable or difficult to model, thus making pricing decisions risky. This research provides a simple proposal for a robust optimization methodology that incorporates both demand uncertainty and the decision maker's degree of risk aversion. Uncertainty is explicitly considered for two coefficients of a linear demand function, price expressions are derived, and a criterion is proposed for defining the degree of risk aversion. The resulting model is also applied to an exponential demand case to better reflect a more realistic retail setting.