Other Economics Commons^™

Financial Liberalization And Banking Crises: A Cross-Country Analysis, Apanard P. Angkinand, Wanvimol Sawangngoenyuang, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Several studies indicate that financial liberalization contributes to the likelihood of a financial crisis. We focus on banking crises and argue that they are most likely to occur after an intermediate degree of liberalization. Using a recently updated dataset for financial reforms in 48 countries between 1973 and 2005, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between liberalization and the likelihood of crisis. We ask whether the relationship remains when institutional characteristics of countries and dynamic effects of liberalization are considered. The empirical results indicate that the relationship between liberalization and banking crises depends strongly on the strength of capital regulation …

Product Innovation And Stability Of Collusion, Sougata Poddar, Bibhas Saha

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

We study the nature of market competition in relation to stability of collusion in the infinitely repeated play of a twostage game of product innovation and market competition, and show that cooperation in giving R&D efforts is more easily sustained when firms compete in quantity than in price.

Understanding The M-Form Hypothesis, Matthew J. Holian

Faculty Publications

The theory of the firm deserves to play a prominent role in both the undergraduate and graduate industrial organization curriculum, both because of the vast amount of attention that has been paid to this area over the last four decades, as well as its practical relevance for strategy and antitrust. This lecture briefly presents some background on the theory of the firm in general, and the M-form Hypothesis in particular. The M-form Hypothesis is an important theory of firm structure, developed by Chandler (1962) and Williamson (1975). A mathematical model, discussion section and accompanying lecture slides illustrate the concepts necessary …

Revitalizing The Signaling Power Of Class Rank At Colby College, Nicholas Van Niel

Honors Theses

Consistent with trends at American colleges and universities nationwide, grades have been monotonically increasing at Colby College over the past decade while controlling for student aptitude. A rich data set that describes every Colby student over three cohorts is used to predict student performance. By comparing the mean predicted grade to the mean actual grade in a department, it is seen that some departments award mean grades that are significantly higher than predicted grades warranted by explainable factors. With some departments giving significantly higher grades than other departments, the current grading system is susceptible to awarding unwarranted higher grades to …

Some Professionals Play Minimax: A Reexamination Of The Minimax Theory In Major League Baseball, Jeffrey Park

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the behavior of Major League Baseball pitchers. We analyze the pitching data from 2007-2010 in order to determine whether their actions follow minimax play. We also examine what the OPS statistic tells us about a pitcher's value.

An Economic Impact Study Of The "Boom" Period Of Baseball Stadium Redevelopment, Emily Mcnab

CMC Senior Theses

The intention of this study is to analyze the economic impact of redeveloped Major League Baseball stadiums opened between 1991 and 2004. Using two empirical models, including an event study, this impact analysis captures the economic conditions of the cities during the opening year of the stadium, as well as the prior conditions leading up to the opening of the stadium, along with any lingering effects or gradual changes in conditions. The impact was measured in relation to the Metropolitan Statistical Areas corresponding to the 18 ballparks included, specifically looking at the impact on employment rates and per capita personal …

Determinants Of Rental Rates In Major Cities In The United States, Roy Ruivo

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

The focus of this paper is to determine variables that contribute to rental rate pricing. Using U.S. Census data pertaining to all cities in the United States with populations over 100,000 in 2005, this paper furthers a study of inter-city rent determinants within New York City provided by Marco (2008) using additional variables provided by Gilderbloom and Pan (2002) in their inter-city study. This report studies the impact of variables, including vacancy rates, median family income, population growth rate, and average housing costs. The population variable will be manipulated so that it represents density, which provides an accurate representation of …

Economic Growth And Emissions In China And India: A Comparison With The Other G5 Emerging Nations, David Niles

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

This paper investigates the possibility of different modes of production affecting the emission levels of developing nations. China and India have experienced substantial economic growth of the past few decades. Past economists have found emission levels positively correlated with GDP growth. Nonetheless, China has significantly higher emission levels than India, given their respective growth in GDP. Whether a country bases their growth on agriculture, industry, manufacturing or services has an effect on their subsequent emission levels. Comparing these results with the other G5 nations indicate the relative importance of GDP level in comparison with economic structure. This paper finds that …

Determinants Of Foreign Direct Investment In An Emerging Market Economy: Evidence From India, Carlos Resende Jr.

Empirical Economic Bulletin, An Undergraduate Journal

Over the past few years, India has recorded a substantial increase in the level of annual foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. This paper examines the relationship between foreign direct investment and domestic investment, while using the ordinary least squared technique, and a time series analysis from the period 1979-2008. Building on the prior literature, this paper provides an empirical analysis of domestic determinants of FDI such as size of market, openness to trade, infrastructure, attractiveness to domestic market, and exchange rate instability. In addition, this paper will include technology growth and specific variables to examine local determinates of FDI in …

Capm In Up And Down Markets: Evidence From Six European Emerging Markets, Jianhua Zhang, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

The pricing of equity in six European emerging capital markets is analysed using both the conventional CAPM and a ‘conditional’ CAPM wherein up and down markets are separated. International influences on the stock markets are also analysed. The empirical evidence from a sample of 1,131 firms from the six markets indicates that there exists a significant relationship between beta and returns when up and down markets are separated. The international CAPM performs well in some markets that have become increasingly integrated with the world market. The general implication of the analysis is that beta can be a useful risk-measure for …

New School In Exile Student Statement, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

his collection includes:

• Statement to New School students. New School in Exile. New York, New York. Date not stated. Unpublished student statement.
• Statement from student occupation, New School in Exile. New School in Exile. New York, New York. Date not stated. Unpublished student statement.

Intellectual Property And Antitrust Limits On Contract: Comment, Matthew J. Holian, Neil Nguyen

Faculty Publications

In their chapter in Dynamic Competition and Public Policy (2001, Cambridge University Press), Burtis and Kobayashi never defined their model's discount rate, making replicating their simulation results difficult. Through our own simulations, we were able to verify their results when using a discount rate of 0.10. We also identified two new types of equilibria that the authors overlooked, doubling the number of distinct equilibria in the model.

The Persistence Of Accounting Versus Economic Profit, Matthew J. Holian, Ali M. Reza

Faculty Publications

Drawing on Schumpeterian theory, this article presents estimates of a first-order autoregressive model of profit persistence for large US firms, using Economic Value Added (EVA), the popular measure of profits produced by Stern Stewart and Company, and simple (unadjusted) accounting measures from the Compustat database. We hypothesize about the differences we should expect to find between these two sets of estimates, and also provide a fresh normative assessment of the dynamic competitiveness of the US economy.

The Attack And Defense Of Weakest-Link Networks, Dan Kovenock, Brian Roberson, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

This paper experimentally examines behavior in a two-player game of attack and defense of a weakest-link network of targets, in which the attacker‟s objective is to successfully attack at least one target and the defender‟s objective is diametrically opposed. We apply two benchmark contest success functions (CSFs): the auction CSF and the lottery CSF. Consistent with the theoretical prediction, under the auction CSF, attackers utilize a stochastic “guerilla warfare” strategy — in which a single random target is attacked — more than 80% of the time. Under the lottery CSF, attackers utilize the stochastic guerilla warfare strategy almost 45% of …

Durability, Re-Trading And Market Performance, John Dickhaut, Shengle Lin, David Porter, Vernon Smith

ESI Working Papers

Key differential structural characteristics of environments studied in previous market experiments have documented large divergences in their observed performance, particularly discrepancies in their convergence to expected equilibrium outcomes. We investigate why this should be so.

Visibility Of Contributions And Cost Of Information: An Experiment On Public Goods, Anya Savikhin, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

We experimentally investigate the impact of visibility of information about contributors on contributions in the public goods game. We systematically consider several treatments that are similar to a wide range of situations in practice. First, we vary the cost of viewing identifiable information about contributors. Second, we vary recognizing all, top or bottom contributors. We find that recognizing all contributors significantly increases contributions relative to the baseline. Recognizing only the top contributors is not significantly different from not recognizing contributors, but recognizing only the bottom contributors is as effective as recognizing all contributors. When viewing information about contributors is costly, …

Fight Or Flight? Defending Against Sequential Attacks In The Game Of Siege, Cary Deck, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

This paper examines theory and behavior in a two-player game of siege, sequential attack and defense. The attacker’s objective is to successfully win at least one battle while the defender’s objective is to win every battle. Theoretically, the defender either folds immediately or, if his valuation is sufficiently high and the number of battles is sufficiently small, then he has a constant incentive to fight in each battle. Attackers respond to defense with diminishing assaults over time. Consistent with theoretical predictions, our experimental results indicate that the probability of successful defense increases in the defenders valuation and it decreases in …

Affecting Policy By Manipulating Prediction Markets: Experimental Evidence, Cary Deck, Shengle Lin, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

Documented results indicate prediction markets effectively aggregate information and form accurate predictions. This has led to a proliferation of markets predicting everything from the results of elections to a company’s sales to movie box office receipts. Recent research suggests prediction markets are robust to manipulation attacks and resulting market outcomes improve forecast accuracy. However, we present evidence from the lab indicating that single‐minded, well‐funded manipulators can in fact destroy a prediction market’s ability to aggregate informative prices and mislead those who are making forecasts based upon market predictions. However, we find that manipulators primarily influence market trades meaning outstanding bids …

Personality And The Consistency Of Risk Taking Behavior: Experimental Evidence, Cary Deck, Jungmin Lee, Javier Reyes

ESI Working Papers

Researchers have found that an individual’s risk attitude is not stable across elicitation methods. Results reported by Deck et al. (2009) suggest that personality may help explain the apparent inconsistency, offering support to Borghans et al.’s (2008) argument that economists should consider a multi‐domain approach to measuring risk attitudes. This paper uses laboratory methods to compare risk attitudes as measured by the Holt and Laury (2002) procedure under two different frames. We find that, as in Deck et al. (2009), one’s willingness to take financial risks (as measured by Weber et al. 2002) significantly affects behavior; however the effect is …

Perfect And Imperfect Real-Time Monitoring In A Minimum-Effort Game, Cary Deck, Nikos Nikiforakis

ESI Working Papers

This paper presents the results from a minimum-effort game in which individuals can observe the choices of others in real time. We find that under perfect monitoring almost all groups coordinate at the payoff-dominant equilibrium. However, when individuals can only observe the actions of their immediate neighbors in a circle network, monitoring improves neither coordination nor efficiency relative to a baseline treatment without real-time monitoring. We argue that the inefficiency of imperfect monitoring is due to information uncertainty, that is, uncertainty about the interpretation of the information available regarding the actions of others.