On the corner of diverse/reverse globalization: the third stage of global 'urban studies'

Books reviewed in this article: Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen (eds.) 2000:, Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order? Peter Marcuse and Ronald van Kempen (eds.) 2002:, Of States and Cities: The Partitioning of Urban Space.     

Existence of Equilibria in Matching Models of Money: A New Technique

This paper develops a new technique for proving the existence and indeterminacy of monetary equilibria in money search models with divisible money. Our technique is substantially simpler than standard constructive proofs in the literature. This paper is based on the second half of Kamiya and Shimizu (2002). We are very grateful to the associate editor and an anonymous referee of this journal for their very detailed suggestions and comments. This research is financially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from JSPS and MEXT. The second author also acknowledges the financial support by Zengin Foundation for studies on Economics and Finance.     

ON THE ROLE OF TAX SUBSIDY SCHEME IN MONEY SEARCH MODELS*

This article investigates the roles of policy in search models with divisible money. Recently, real indeterminacy of stationary equilibria has been found in both specific and general search models with divisible money. Thus if we assume the divisibility of money, it would be quite difficult to make accurate predictions of the effects of simple monetary policies. Therefore, in this article, we introduce a certain tax subsidy scheme and show that this is effective in selecting a determinate efficient equilibrium. In other words, for a given efficient equilibrium and for any real number δ > 0 , a certain tax subsidy scheme induces a locally determinate equilibrium within the δ‐neighborhood of the given equilibrium. Moreover, the size of the tax subsidy can be arbitrarily small.     

Labour unions and leverage: evidence from firm-level union data

ABSTRACT

Using firm-level labour union data from Japan, this paper investigates the effect of labour unions on firm leverage. We find that as union coverage increases, both the level of and extent of change in leverage decreases. These relations remain robust when a firm falls into deficit. We also find that firms with higher union coverage have a higher interest coverage ratio. In addition, we find that firms with higher union coverage are less likely to choose issuing debt compared to issuing equity when they face financial distress. Our results imply that significant employee influence enhanced by labour unions increases fixed costs, crowds out the firm’s debt capacity and consequently reduces the firm’s leverage.     

Optimal pair-trading strategy over long/short/square positions—empirical study

Suzuki [Automatica, 2016, 67, 33–45] solves the optimal, finitely iterative, three-regime switching problem for investing in a mean-reverting asset that follows an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck price process and find explicit solutions. The remarkable feature of this model is that the investor can explicitly take either a long, short or square position and can switch the position, with transaction costs, during the investment period. We run empirical simulations of such multiple-regime switching models. There are very few such attempts in the existing literature because it is difficult to find, first, an explicit solution to the problem and second, appropriate financial assets that follow the artificial stochastic process required by the mathematical model. According to the Monte Carlo simulations of the optimal pair-trading strategy, the mean daily Sharp ratio is more than 2.3, whereas the mean Sharp ratio for the historical simulation of the ‘stub’ pairs (combinations of parent/subsidiary companies) is 0.6886. We believe that the results obtained from performing the empirical simulations are remarkable and consider that the optimal switching strategy of the rigorous mathematical model is applicable to businesses in the real world. For the reference many pseudo-program codes are added, which can help to replicate the optimal trading strategies.     

Habit formation and the present-value model of the current account: Yet another suspect

In a recent paper, Gruber (Gruber, J.W., 2004. A present value test of habits and the current account. Journal of Monetary Economics 51, 1495-1507) claims that habit formation in consumption plays an important role in current account fluctuations in selected developed countries, extending the present-value model of the current account (PVM) with consumption habits. In this paper, however, I show that the habit-forming PVM is observationally equivalent to the PVM augmented with persistent transitory consumption, which is induced by world real interest rate shocks. Based on a small open-economy real business cycle (SOE-RBC) model endowed with consumption habits as well as persistent world real interest rate shocks, this paper resolves the inherent identification problem of the habit-forming PVM by Bayesian methods to seek effects of habit formation on current account fluctuations in typical small open economies, Canada and the United Kingdom. Results reveal no clear evidence that habit formation plays a crucial role in current account fluctuations.     

A new necessary condition for implementation in iteratively undominated strategies

We uncover a new necessary condition for implementation in iteratively undominated strategies by mechanisms that satisfy the “best element property” where for each agent, there exists a strategy profile that gives him the highest payoff in the mechanism. This class includes finite and regular mechanisms. We conclude that either the quasilinearity-like assumptions of available sufficiency results cannot be completely dispensed with or some mechanisms that do not satisfy the best element property must be employed. We term the condition “restricted deception-proofness.” It requires that, in environments with identical preferences, the social choice function be immune to all deceptions, making it then stronger than incentive compatibility. In some environments the conditions for (exact or approximate) implementation by mechanisms satisfying the best element property are more restrictive than previously thought.