New Evidence on Housing Wealth and Consumption Channels

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics - This paper provides new evidence on the effect of housing wealth on consumption by focusing on the impact of home-equity extraction. We develop a...     

Through Trial and Error to Collusion*

In this article we study a very simple trial and error learning process in the context of a Cournot oligopoly. Without any knowledge of the payoff functions players increase, respectively decrease, their quantity as long as this leads to higher profits. We show that despite the absence of any coordination or punishing device this process converges to the joint‐profit‐maximizing outcome.     

Regime switching in the yield curve

The article investigates the effect of interest‐rate variance on the shape of the yield curve with the use of a bivariate two‐state Markov switching model for the short‐rate changes and the yield curve slope. The two states are characterized by the variance of the short‐rate changes: low and high variance. In the high‐variance regime the yield curve becomes steeper with the interest‐rate variance; in the low‐variance regime the slope is independent hereof. A nonswitching specification amounts to averaging across the two states. The economy is in the high‐variance state during unusual economic periods. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 24:315–336, 2004     

Elicitation using multiple price list formats

We examine the properties of a popular method for eliciting choices and values from experimental subjects, the multiple price list format. The main advantage of this format is that it is relatively transparent to subjects and provides simple incentives for truthful revelation. The main disadvantages are that it only elicits interval responses, and could be susceptible to framing effects. We consider extensions to address and evaluate these concerns. We conclude that although there are framing effects, they can be controlled for with a design that allows for them. We also find that the elicitation of risk attitudes is sensitive to procedures, subject pools, and the format of the multiple price list table, but that the qualitative findings that participants are generally risk averse is robust. The elicitation of discount rates appear less sensitive to details of the experimental design. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C9, D81, D91 An erratum to this article is available at .     

The risk-return trade-off in human capital investment

In this paper, we analyze investments in human capital in a way which is standard for financial assets, but not (yet) for human capital assets. We study mean-variance plots of human capital assets. We compare the properties of human capital returns using a performance measure and by using tests for mean-variance spanning. Fields differ strongly not only in common rates of return, but also in return per unit of risk. We identify a range of educations that are efficient in terms of investment goods, and a range of educations that may be chosen for consumption purposes.     

Implied Volatility of Interest Rate Options: An Empirical Investigation of the Market Model

We analyze the empirical properties of the volatilityimplied in options on the 13-week US Treasury bill rate. These options havenot been studied previously. It is shown that a European style put optionon the interest rate is equivalent to a call option on a zero-coupon bond.We apply the LIBOR market model and conduct a battery of validity tests tocompare three different volatility specifications: contact, affine, and exponentialvolatility. It appears that the additional parameter in the affine and theexponential volatility function is not justified. Overall, the LIBOR marketmodel fares well in describing these options.     

An Anatomy of Price Dynamics in Illiquid Markets: Analysis and Evidence from Local Housing Markets

This research analyzes the dynamic properties of the difference equation that arises when markets exhibit serial correlation and mean reversion. We identify the correlation and reversion parameters for which prices will overshoot equilibrium ("cycles") and/or diverge permanently from equilibrium. We then estimate the serial correlation and mean reversion coefficients from a large panel data set of 62 metro areas from 1979 to 1995 conditional on a set of economic variables that proxy for information costs, supply costs and expectations. Serial correlation is higher in metro areas with higher real incomes, population growth and real construction costs. Mean reversion is greater in large metro areas and faster growing cities with lower construction costs. The average fitted values for mean reversion and serial correlation lie in the convergent oscillatory region, but specific observations fall in both the damped and oscillatory regions and in both the convergent and divergent regions. Thus, the dynamic properties of housing markets are specific to the given time and location being considered.     

Marginal Economy: Growth Strategies for Post-Growth Societies

A sharp problem focus sharpens the problem. Sustainably growing bodies of literature on degrowth are not the key to post-growth scenarios because evocations of the limits of growth reinforce rather than transcend the economic principle, which is in the observation of scarcity. Therefore, I focus on alternative forms of growth rather than alternatives to growth. My form-theoretical analysis of growth dismoralizes growth and disembeds it from the economic medium in which it is preferably drawn. I suggest that the key to a post-growth society is in a regrowth of interest in growth in, so far, neglected non-economic function systems.