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Articles 1261 - 1290 of 2768
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Elementary Discussion Of Commodity Money, Fiat Money And Credit: Part 1, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
An Elementary Discussion Of Commodity Money, Fiat Money And Credit: Part 1, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
In this paper we present a series of models, all within the context of a simple two-good economy, which bring out the distinctions among the different types of money and financial institutions. The models emphasize the physical properties of the economic goods, moneys, and trading systems. Part 1 covers models in which the money is a consumable storable; the economies in Part 2 use durable money, fiat money, or credit. Under this framework we are able to successfully contrast the role of private money lenders, banks, bilateral credit systems, and credit clearinghouses. We are also able to model the importance …
Three Strikes And You’Re Out: Reply To Cooper And Willis, Ricardo J. Caballero, Eduardo Engel
Three Strikes And You’Re Out: Reply To Cooper And Willis, Ricardo J. Caballero, Eduardo Engel
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Cooper and Willis (2003) is the latest in a sequence of criticisms of our methodology for estimating aggregate nonlinearities when microeconomic adjustment is lumpy. Their case is based on “reproducing” our main findings using artificial data generated by a model where microeconomic agents face quadratic adjustment costs. That is, they supposedly find our results where they should not be found. The three claims on which they base their case are incorrect. Their mistakes range from misinterpreting their own simulation results to failing to understand the context in which our procedures should be applied. They also claim that our approach assumes …
Smoothed Empirical Likelihood Methods For Quantile Regression Models, Yoon-Jae Whang
Smoothed Empirical Likelihood Methods For Quantile Regression Models, Yoon-Jae Whang
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper considers an empirical likelihood method to estimate the parameters of the quantile regression (QR) models and to construct confidence regions that are accurate in finite samples. To achieve the higher-order refinements, we smooth the estimating equations for the empirical likelihood. We show that the smoothed empirical likelihood (SEL) estimator is first-order asymptotically equivalent to the standard QR estimator and establish that confidence regions based on the smoothed empirical likelihood ratio have coverage errors of order n –1 and may be Bartlett-corrected to produce regions with an error of order n –2 , where n denotes the sample size. …
Purification In The Infinitely-Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma, V. Bhaskar, George J. Mailath, Stephen Morris
Purification In The Infinitely-Repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma, V. Bhaskar, George J. Mailath, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper investigates the Harsanyi-purifiability of mixed strategies in the repeated prisoners’ dilemma with perfect monitoring. We perturb the game so that in each period, a player receives a private payoff shock which is independently and identically distributed across players and periods. We focus on the purifiability of a class of one-period memory mixed strategy equilibria used by Ely and Välimäki in their study of the repeated prisoners’ dilemma with private monitoring. We find that the strategy profile is purifiable by perturbed-game finite-memory strategies if and only if it is strongly symmetric, in the sense that after every history, both …
Using Subspace Methods For Estimating Arma Models For Multivariate Time Series With Conditionally Heteroskedastic Innovations, Dietmar Bauer
Using Subspace Methods For Estimating Arma Models For Multivariate Time Series With Conditionally Heteroskedastic Innovations, Dietmar Bauer
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper deals with the estimation of linear dynamic models of the ARMA type for the conditional mean for time series with conditionally heteroskedastic innovation process widely used in modelling financial time series. Estimation is performed using subspace methods which are known to have computational advantages as compared to prediction error methods based on criterion minimization. These advantages are especially strong for high dimensional time series. The subspace methods are shown to provide consistent estimators. Moreover asymptotic equivalence to prediction error estimators in terms of the asymptotic variance is proved. Also order estimation techniques are proposed and analyzed. The estimators …
Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-Based Approach, Keith M. Chen, Jesse M. Shapiro
Does Prison Harden Inmates? A Discontinuity-Based Approach, Keith M. Chen, Jesse M. Shapiro
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Some two million Americans are currently incarcerated, with roughly six hundred thousand to be released this year. Despite this, little is known about the effects of confinement conditions on the post-release lives of inmates. Focusing on post-release criminal activity, we identify the causal effect of prison conditions on recidivism rates by exploiting a discontinuity in the assignment of federal prisoners to security levels. We find that harsher prison conditions are associated with significantly more post-release crime.
Absenteeism, Substitutes, Complements, And The Banzhaf Index, Thomas Quint
Absenteeism, Substitutes, Complements, And The Banzhaf Index, Thomas Quint
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the voting-with-absenteeism game of Quint-Shubik (2003). In that paper we defined a power index for such games, called the absentee index. Our analysis was based on the theory of the Shapley-Shubik power index (SSPI) for simple games. In this paper we do an analogous analysis, based on the Banzhaf index instead of the SSPI. The result is a new index, called the absentee Banzhaf index. We provide an axiomatization and multilinear extension formula for this index. Finally, we re-explore Myerson’s (1977, 1980) “balanced contributions” property, and the concept of substitutes and complements for simple games (Quint-Shubik 2003), again …
Dollar Denominated Debt And Optimal Security Design, John Geanakoplos, Felix Kubler
Dollar Denominated Debt And Optimal Security Design, John Geanakoplos, Felix Kubler
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
During a crisis, developing countries regret having issued dollar denominated debt because they have to pay more when they have less. Ex ante, however, they may be worse off issuing local currency debt because the equilibrium interest rate might rise, making it more expensive for them to borrow. Many authors have assumed that lenders and borrowers have contrary goals, and that local currency (peso) debt is better for the borrower (Bolivia), and dollar debt is better for the lender (America). We show that if each country is represented by a single consumer with quadratic utilities, in perfect competition, then both …
Absenteeism, Substitutes, And Complements In Simple Games, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
Absenteeism, Substitutes, And Complements In Simple Games, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A voting with absenteeism game is defined as a pair (G;r) where G is an n-player (monotonic) simple game and r is an n-vector for which r i is the probability that player i attends a vote. We define a power index for such games, called the absentee index. We axiomatize the absentee index and provide a multilinear extension formula for it. Using this analysis we re-derive Myerson’s (1977, 1980) “balanced contributions” property for the Shapley-Shubik power index. In fact, we derive a formula which quantitatively gives the amount of the ‘balanced contributions” in terms of the coefficients of the …
A Behavioral Model Of Bargaining With Endogenous Types, Dilip Abreu, David G. Pearce
A Behavioral Model Of Bargaining With Endogenous Types, Dilip Abreu, David G. Pearce
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We enrich a simple two-person bargaining model by introducing “behavioral types” who concede more slowly than does the average person in the economy. The presence of behavioral types profoundly influences the choices of optimizing types. In equilibrium, concessions are calculated to induce “reciprocity”: a substantial concession by player i is followed by a period in which j is much more likely to make a concession than usual. This favors concessions by i that are neither very small nor large enough to end the bargaining immediately. A key difference from the traditional method of perturbing a game is that the actions …
Can One Estimate The Conditional Distribution Of Post-Model-Selection Estimators?, Hannes Leeb, Benedikt M. Pötscher
Can One Estimate The Conditional Distribution Of Post-Model-Selection Estimators?, Hannes Leeb, Benedikt M. Pötscher
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We consider the problem of estimating the conditional distribution of a post-model-selection estimator where the conditioning is on the selected model. The notion of a post-model-selection estimator here refers to the combined procedure resulting from first selecting a model (e.g., by a model selection criterion like AIC or by a hypothesis testing procedure) and second estimating the parameters in the selected model (e.g., by least-squares or maximum likelihood), all based on the same data set. We show that it is impossible to estimate this distribution with reasonable accuracy even asymptotically. In particular, we show that no estimator for this distribution …
Nonparametric Tests For Common Values In First-Price Sealed-Bid Auctions, Philip A. Haile, Han Hong, Matthew Shum
Nonparametric Tests For Common Values In First-Price Sealed-Bid Auctions, Philip A. Haile, Han Hong, Matthew Shum
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We develop tests for common values at first-price sealed-bid auctions. Our tests are nonparametric, require observations only of the bids submitted at each auction, and are based on the fact that the “winner’s curse” arises only in common values auctions. The tests build on recently developed methods for using observed bids to estimate each bidder’s conditional expectation of the value of winning the auction. Equilibrium behavior implies that in a private values auction these expectations are invariant to the number of opponents each bidder faces, while with common values they are decreasing in the number of opponents. This distinction forms …
The Invention Of Inflation-Indexed Bonds In Early America, Robert J. Shiller
The Invention Of Inflation-Indexed Bonds In Early America, Robert J. Shiller
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The world’s first known inflation-indexed bonds were issued by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. These bonds were invented to deal with severe wartime inflation and with angry discontent among soldiers in the U.S. Army with the decline in purchasing power of their pay. Although the bonds were successful, the concept of indexed bonds was abandoned after the immediate extreme inflationary environment passed, and largely forgotten until the twentieth century. In 1780, the bonds were viewed as at best only an irregular expedient, since there was no formulated economic theory to justify indexation.
An Efficiency Rationale For Bundling Of Public Goods, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
An Efficiency Rationale For Bundling Of Public Goods, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper studies the role of bundling in the efficient provision of excludable public goods. We show that bundling in the provision of unrelated public goods can enhance social welfare. With a large number of goods and agents, first best can be approximated with pure bundling. For a parametric class of problems with binary valuations, we characterize the optimal mechanism, and show that bundling alleviates the free riding problem in large economies and decreases the extent of use exclusions. Both results are related to the idea that bundling makes it possible to reduce the incidence of exclusions because the variance …
The Edgeworth, Cournot And Walrasian Cores Of An Economy, Martin Shubik
The Edgeworth, Cournot And Walrasian Cores Of An Economy, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Three variations of the core of a market game representing an exchange economy are considered and compared. The possibility for utilizing the Walrasian core to reflect certain monetary phenomena is noted.
Optimal Provision Of Multiple Excludable Public Goods, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
Optimal Provision Of Multiple Excludable Public Goods, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper studies the optimal provision mechanism for multiple excludable public goods when agents’ valuations are private information. For a parametric class of problems with binary valuations, we characterize the optimal mechanism, and show that it involves bundling. Bundling alleviates the free riding problem in large economies in two ways: first, it can increase the asymptotic provision probability of socially efficient public goods from zero to one; second, it decreases the extent of use exclusions.
To Bundle Or Not To Bundle, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
To Bundle Or Not To Bundle, Hanming Fang, Peter Norman
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Commodity bundling is studied in an environment where the dispersion of valuations unambiguously decreases when two or more goods are sold as a bundle only. Bundling is more likely to dominate separately selling the goods if marginal costs are low relative to the average valuation, or if the distribution of valuations is very peaked around the mean.
A Double Auction Market: Teaching, Experiment And Theory, Martin Shubik
A Double Auction Market: Teaching, Experiment And Theory, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A simultaneous double auction market with bid and offer cards was utilized in classes on the theory and history of money and financial institutions and occasionally in classes on the theory of games. The prime purpose in using this game was to teach the students how to construct process models of economic phenomena. The second purpose was to consider the properties of the double auction market. The third purpose was to interpret the experimental results an link them to theory.
Long Run Variance Estimation Using Steep Origin Kernels Without Truncation, Peter C.B. Phillips, Yixiao Sun, Sainan Jin
Long Run Variance Estimation Using Steep Origin Kernels Without Truncation, Peter C.B. Phillips, Yixiao Sun, Sainan Jin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
A new class of kernel estimates is proposed for long run variance (LRV) and heteroskedastic autocorrelation consistent (HAC) estimation. The kernels are called steep origin kernels and are related to a class of sharp origin kernels explored by the authors (2003) in other work. They are constructed by exponentiating a mother kernel (a conventional lag kernel that is smooth at the origin) and they can be used without truncation or bandwidth parameters. When the exponent is passed to infinity with the sample size, these kernels produce consistent LRV/HAC estimates. The new estimates are shown to have limit normal distributions, and …
On The Empirical Content Of Quantal Response Equilibrium, Philip A. Haile, Ali Hortaçsu, Grigory Kosenok
On The Empirical Content Of Quantal Response Equilibrium, Philip A. Haile, Ali Hortaçsu, Grigory Kosenok
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The quantal response equilibrium (QRE) notion of McKelvey and Palfrey (1995) has recently attracted considerable attention, due largely to its widely documented ability to rationalize observed behavior in games played by experimental subjects. We show that this ability to fit the data, as typically measured in this literature, is uninformative. Without a priori distributional assumptions, a QRE can match any distribution of behavior by each player in any normal form game. We discuss approaches that might be taken to provide valid empirical evaluation of the QRE and discuss its potential value as an approximating empirical structure.
Risk And Wealth In A Model Of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks, Bernardo Guimarães, Stephen Morris
Risk And Wealth In A Model Of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks, Bernardo Guimarães, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Market participants’ risk attitudes, wealth and portfolio composition influence their positions in a pegged foreign currency and, therefore, may have important effects on the sustainability of currency pegs. We analyze such effects in a global game model of currency crises with continuous action choices. The model, solved in closed form, generates a rich set of theoretical predictions consistent with many popular and academic (unmodelled) speculations about the onset and timing of currency crises. The results extend linearly to a heterogeneous agent population.
Incidental Trends And The Power Of Panel Unit Root Tests, Hyungsik Roger Moon, Benoit Perron, Peter C.B. Phillips
Incidental Trends And The Power Of Panel Unit Root Tests, Hyungsik Roger Moon, Benoit Perron, Peter C.B. Phillips
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The asymptotic local powers of various panel unit root tests are investigated. The power envelope is obtained under homogeneous and heterogeneous alternatives. It is compared with asymptotic power functions of the pooled t -test, the Ploberger–Phillips (2002) test, and a point optimal test in neighborhoods of unity that are of order n –1/ 4 T –1 and n –1/ 2 T –1 , depending on whether or not incidental trends are extracted from the panel data. In the latter case, when the alternative hypothesis is homogeneous across individuals, it is shown that the point optimal test and Ploberger–Phillips test both …
Risk And Wealth In A Model Of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks, Bernardo Guimarães, Stephen Morris
Risk And Wealth In A Model Of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks, Bernardo Guimarães, Stephen Morris
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We analyze the effect of risk aversion, wealth and portfolios on the behavior of investors in a global game model of currency crises with continuous action choices. The model generates a rich set of striking theoretical predictions. For example, risk aversion makes currency crises significantly less likely; increased wealth makes crises more likely; and foreign direct investment (illiquid investments in the target currency) make crises more likely. Our results extend linearly to a heterogeneous agent population.
Prewhitening Bias In Hac Estimation, Donggyu Sul, Peter C.B. Phillips, Chi-Young Choi
Prewhitening Bias In Hac Estimation, Donggyu Sul, Peter C.B. Phillips, Chi-Young Choi
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
HAC estimation commonly involves the use of prewhitening filters based on simple autoregressive models. In such applications, small sample bias in the estimation of autoregressive coefficients is transmitted to the recoloring filter, leading to HAC variance estimates that can be badly biased. The present paper provides an analysis of these issues using asymptotic expansions and simulations. The approach we recommend involves the use of recursive demeaning procedures that mitigate the effects of small sample autoregressive bias. Moreover, a commonly-used restriction rule on the prewhitening estimates (that first order autoregressive coefficient estimates, or largest eigenvalues, greater than 0.97 be replaced by …
Bias In Dynamic Panel Estimation With Fixed Effects, Incidental Trends And Cross Section Dependence, Peter C.B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul
Bias In Dynamic Panel Estimation With Fixed Effects, Incidental Trends And Cross Section Dependence, Peter C.B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Explicit asymptotic bias formulae are given for dynamic panel regression estimators as the cross section sample size N → ∞. The results extend earlier work by Nickell (1981) and later authors in several directions that are relevant for practical work, including models with unit roots, deterministic trends, predetermined and exogenous regressors, and errors that may be cross sectionally dependent. The asymptotic bias is found to be so large when incidental linear trends are fitted and the time series sample size is small that it changes the sign of the autoregressive coefficient. Another finding of interest is that, when there is …
Liquidity Black Holes, Stephen Morris, Hyun Song Shin
Liquidity Black Holes, Stephen Morris, Hyun Song Shin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Traders with short horizons and privately known trading limits interact in a market for a risky asset. Risk-averse, long horizon traders supply a downward sloping residual demand curve that face the short-horizon traders. When the price falls close to the trading limits of the short horizon traders, selling of the risky asset by any trader increases the incentives for others to sell. Sales become mutually reinforcing among the short term traders, and payoffs analogous to a bank run are generated. A “liquidity black hole” is the analogue of the run outcome in a bank run model. Short horizon traders sell …
On The Empirical Content Of Quantal Response Equilibrium, Philip A. Haile, Ali Hortaçsu, Grigory Kosenok
On The Empirical Content Of Quantal Response Equilibrium, Philip A. Haile, Ali Hortaçsu, Grigory Kosenok
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The quantal response equilibrium (QRE) notion of McKelvey and Palfrey (1995) has recently attracted considerable attention, due in part to its widely documented ability to rationalize observed behavior in games played by experimental subjects. However, even with strong a priori restrictions on unobservables, QRE imposes no falsifiable restrictions: it can rationalize any distribution of behavior in any normal form game. After demonstrating this, we discuss several approaches to testing QRE under additional maintained assumptions.
Missing Aggregate Dynamics: On The Slow Convergence Of Lumpy Adjustment Models, Ricardo J. Caballero, Eduardo Engel
Missing Aggregate Dynamics: On The Slow Convergence Of Lumpy Adjustment Models, Ricardo J. Caballero, Eduardo Engel
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The dynamic response of aggregate variables to shocks is one of the central concerns of applied macroeconomics. The main measurement procedure for these dynamics consists of estimating an ARMA or VAR (VARs, for short). In non- or semi-structural approaches, the characterization of dynamics stops there. In other, more structural approaches, researcher try to uncover underlying adjustment cost parameters from the estimated VARs. Yet, in others, such as in RBC models, these estimates are used as the benchmark over which the success of the calibration exercise, and the need for further theorizing, is assessed. The main point of this paper is …
Uniqueness Of Equilibrium In The Multi-Country Ricardo Model, Herbert E. Scarf, Charles A. Wilson
Uniqueness Of Equilibrium In The Multi-Country Ricardo Model, Herbert E. Scarf, Charles A. Wilson
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We present two arguments, one based on index theory, demonstrating that the multi-country Ricardo model has a unique competitive equilibrium if the aggregate demand functions exhibit gross substitutability. The result is somewhat surprising because the assumption of gross substitutability is sufficient for uniqueness in a model of exchange but not, in general, when production is included in the model.
The Ideal Inflation Indexed Bond And Irving Fisher's Impatience Theory Of Interest In An Overlapping Generations World, John Geanakoplos
The Ideal Inflation Indexed Bond And Irving Fisher's Impatience Theory Of Interest In An Overlapping Generations World, John Geanakoplos
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Irving Fisher long advocated inflation indexed bonds. I prove in the context of a multicommodity CAPM world that the best welfare improving bond pays the minimum money needed to achieve the same utility, and not the minimum needed to buy an ideal commodity bundle. Irving Fisher also developed and advocated the impatience theory of interest. But in OLG economies, the rate of interest is determined by population growth, not impatience. I reconcile this contradiction by proving that in stationary OLG economies with land, the interest rate at the unique steady state does depend on impatience. Indeed, the proposition that greater …