Testing the effect of technical analysis on market quality and order book dynamics

We find empirical support for the theoretical finding in agent-based models of limit order book markets that the effect of technical trading on market quality is not positive. When signals occur, technical traders lower liquidity as proxied by the relative spread, the effective spread, the realized spread, the dispersion and the slope in the order book. Technical trading is also found to be accompanied by rising volatility. There is overall strong empirical support against the hypothesis that technical trading has no effect on order book dynamics.     

An endogenous policy model of hierarchical government

Endogenous policy models usually neglect that government policies are frequently the result of decisions taken at different tiers by different agents, each enjoying some degree of autonomy. In this paper, policies are the outcome of the choices made by two agents within a hierarchy. A legislator decides on the budget to be successively spent by a bureaucrat. Both agents are lobbied by one or two interest groups. The combination of sequential decisionmaking and lobbying implies that the interaction between the agent at one tier and the interest group(s) depends on the exchange between the same interest group(s) and the agent at the other tier. Our results concerning multi-tier lobbying and legislatorial oversight substantially qualify the conventional wisdom related to one-tier lobbying. In particular, the reaction of the legislator to lobbying at the bureaucratic tier may make lobbying wasteful even when there is no competition from other lobbies. Moreover, the legislator benefits from lobbying only when there is competition between interest groups at the upper tier. It is also shown that competition for influence at the bureaucratic tier may work as a perfect substitute for legislatorial oversight. Extensions of the model indicate its usefulness for the analysis of decisionmaking in other multilevel governance structures, like federations or firms.     

Voluntary Provision of Public Goods and Technology

This paper highlights issues in the theory of voluntary provision of public goods, building on the investigation by Peacock in connection with the contributions by Coase and Buchanan. Our goal is twofold. We first draw attention to the early literature investigating the provision of public goods and to the successive theoretical analysis. We then focus on the impact of technology on supply and demand. Examples of different types of public goods are provided, with special attention to the cultural sector, to investigate whether and how technology affects the efficiency and the effectiveness of the related public goods provision. The implementation and exploitation of technological advancements are investigated in view of the role of different actors (public, private) at different levels of government.     

The Innovative City in History

Book reviewed in this article: Peter Hall, Cities in civilization. Culture, innovation, and urban order     

Consulting University: A Reflection from Inside

This paper contributes to a growing literature on the role of management consultants in the public sector by examining a sensitive area of management consulting, as exercised by university faculty members and as applied to universities. It frames the development of management consulting as an idea that originated in universities, travelled first into the private sector and then into the public sector, from country to country, and was eventually applied to universities – with problematic effects.     

The influence of director stock ownership and board discussion transparency on financial reporting quality

Seventy-two active corporate directors participate in an experiment where management insists on aggressive recognition of revenue, but the chief audit executive proposes a more conservative approach. Results indicate interactive effects of director stock ownership and the transparency of director decisions. Stock-owning directors are more likely to oppose management’s attempts to manage earnings when transparency increases. For non-stock owning directors, however, increasing transparency does not affect the likelihood that directors oppose management’s attempts to manage earnings. The current study challenges suppositions that equate director stock ownership with improved financial reporting and higher corporate governance quality, and it provides evidence that increased transparency is beneficial when director compensation plans threaten director independence.     

Does Centralization Increase the Size of Government? The Effects of Separation of Powers and Lobbying

Difficulties faced by the Economic and Monetary Union have strengthened the position of those who advocate a process of (further) political integration in the European Union (EU). A widespread fear is, though, that such a process would favor powerful interest groups able to lobby the EU policymakers. Persson and Tabellini (1994) argue that political centralization will increase the size of the government through lobbying because of free-riding incentives created by federally funded programs with localized benefits. We extend their analysis by presenting a model where the budgeting process is divided into two stages, instead of one, which better captures the EU institutional framework. A federal legislator (the Council) chooses the size of the budget at one stage, while a federal agency (the Commission) chooses the allocation of the budget at the next stage. We show that separation of powers in the budgeting process restricts free riding and, therefore, reduces the incentives to lobby. The result is an unchanged budget under centralization. Moreover, it is shown that if the lobbying activity is directed to both policymakers, competitive lobbying may actually reduce the size of the public sector under centralized policymaking.     

Implicit transaction cost management using intraday price dynamics

Using the Exchange Liquidity Measure, we show that implicit transaction costs exhibit intraday regularities around specific price change signals for a sample of European blue chips publicly quoted on Euronext. Not only transaction costs follow a reverse J-shape throughout the day but they also decrease significantly around specific patterns of price dynamics. By focusing on these signals during the trading day, liquidity traders may detect intraday windows of opportunities during which implicit transaction costs are lower.     

Sri Lankans’ residential segregation and spatial inequalities in Southern Italy: an empirical analysis using fine-scale data on regular lattice geographies

Quality & Quantity - Sri Lankans constitute one of Italy's oldest foreign communities. A comparative geographic study of Sri Lankans’ settlement patterns in three main municipalities...