Strategic Responses to Regulatory Policies: What Lessons Can Be Learned from the U.K. Contract Gas Market?

The gas industry was first privatisedin 1986, and the regulator, Ofgas, identified thecontract gas market as a possibility for introducinginitial competition into the industry. Nevertheless,competing shippers were slow in entering the market.Subsequently, Ofgas introduced a series ofpro-competitive policies. It, however, invoked aseries of strategic behaviour by the incumbentshipper, British Gas. The effectiveness of thesemeasures are analysed here with respect to theevolving competitive process. The issues it raised,especially when formulating future regulatory policiesand theories, are also considered.     

Trade Integration and Business Cycle Convergence: Is the Relation Robust across Time and Space?*

In this paper we investigate the relationship between trade intensity and the business cycle correlation using a panel data set taken from 24 countries over the period 1959–2003. Most previous studies did not account for the possibility that the business cycle correlation may be influenced by unobservable country‐pair specific effects. Our estimates, using both fixed‐ and random‐effects methodologies, suggest that trade intensity and the business cycle correlation are positively related to one another. However, detailed investigation shows that this relationship exists mainly for the European countries.     

Confidence or competence: Do presidencies matter for households’ subjective preferences?

This paper investigates how households form subjective preferences. We examine the relationship between subjective economic confidence or sentiments and the perception of the incumbent government's competence, and consider how preferences affect each other. We further consider consequences of different presidencies. A theoretical model shows how households ‘anchor’ subjective views of the incumbent's competence on the household's confidence. Empirical analysis confirms the posited behavior and confirms that different presidencies have a bearing on the relationship.     

Network Access Regulation and Competition Policy: An Assessment of the “Direct-Plus-Opportunity Cost” Regime and Policy Options

A fundamental issue when determining competition policy, especially in vertically integrated industries, is the formulation of interconnection charges. Recently an influential set of theories on network access price has been put forward under the broad heading of direct-plus-opportunity cost regime (DOCR). This paper deals with two distinct but related aspects of DOCR. The first part of the paper considers the policy implications of an access regime determined by DOCR. Its compatibility in attaining contestable outcomes in the final goods market and its effect on welfare gains, especially producer's surplus, are evaluated. Secondly, the paper empirically applies a version of DOCR to the UK contract gas market, and the simulated outcomes and possible scenarios are considered.     

Forecasting performance of extreme‐value volatility estimators

This study evaluates the forecasting performance of extreme‐value volatility estimators for the equity‐based Nifty Index using two‐scale realized volatility. This benchmark mitigates the effect of microstructure noise in the realized volatility. Extreme‐value estimates with relatively simple forecasting methods provide substantially better short‐term and long‐term forecasts, compared to historical volatility. The higher efficiency of extreme‐value estimators is primarily responsible for this improvement. The extent of possible improvement in forecasts is likely to be economically significant for applications like options pricing. By including extremevalue estimators, the forecasting performance of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) can also be improved. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27: 1085–1105, 2007     

Evaluating consumer sentiments as predictors of UK household consumption behavior: Are they accurate and useful?

This paper investigates empirically whether consumer sentiments indices, based on surveys complied by GfK, forecast household consumption types for the UK. Firstly, we use a quantitative equation approach to assess whether the indices are able to forecast household consumption growth in addition to traditional variables, which are included as control variables. Subsequently, using qualitative directional analysis, we investigate whether the indices are accurate and useful predictors as well. We find that, broadly speaking, both the headline, or aggregate, and the major purchasing indices have some predictive powers in addition to the control variables and are also directionally accurate and useful.     

Influence of endogenous reference points on the selling decisions of retail investors

Using trader-level data, we examine the impact of the stock-specific endogenous reference points, the ‘realized-return’ and the ‘peak-return’ of the prior round on the selling propensity in a subsequent investment round in the same asset. The selling propensity rises significantly near the endogenous reference points. The significance is greater when the holding period is relatively shorter and when the time gap between the consecutive rounds is lower, implying a recency effect. Finally, the impact is more substantial on traders holding fewer stocks. The results imply that traders' prior stock-specific experience plays a significant role in the reference point formation.