implementing efficient allocations in a model of financial intermediation abstract in a finite trader version of the diamond and dybvig j polit econ 91 1983 401 model the ex ante efficient allocation is implementable by a direct mechanism i e each trader announces the type of his own ex post preference in which truthful revelation is the strictly dominant strategy for each trader when the model is modified by formalizing the sequential service constraint cf wallace fed reserve bank minneapolis quart rev 12 1988 3 the truth telling equilibrium implements the symmetric ex ante efficient allocation with respect to iterated elimination of strictly dominated strategies

bank runs and investment decisions revisited we examine how the possibility of a bank run affects the deposit contract offered and the investment decisions made by a competitive bank cooper and ross 1998 have shown that when the probability of a run is small the bank will offer a contract that admits a bank run equilibrium we show that in this case the bank will chose to hold an amount of liquid reserves exactly equal to what withdrawal demand will be if a run does not occur in other words precautionary or excess liquidity will not be held this result allows us to determine how the possibility of a bank run affects the level of illiquid investment chosen by a bank we show that when the cost of liquidating investment early is high the level of investment is decreasing in the probability of a run however when liquidation costs are moderate the level of investment is actually increasing in the probability of a run

fdi and taxation a meta study despite the continuing political interest in the usefulness of tax competition and tax coordination as well as the wealth of theoretical analyses it still remains open whether or when tax competition is harmful moreover the influence of tax differentials on multinationals decisions is still insufficiently analyzed thus economists have increasingly resorted to empirical analysis in order to gain insights on the elasticity of fdi with respect to company taxation as a result the empirical literature on taxation and international capital flows has grown to a similar abundance during the last 25 years as the respective theoretical literature its heterogeneity leads to a rising need for concise reviews on the existing empirical evidence in this paper we extend former meta analyses on fdi and taxation in three ways first we add the most recent publications unconsidered in meta analyses up to date second we apply a different methodology by using a broad set of meta regression estimators and explicitly discuss which one is most suitable for application to our meta data third we address some important issues in research on fdi and taxation to the clarification of which meta analysis can make valuable contributions these issues are mainly the influence of variables which might moderate effects of tax differentials e g public spending the implications of using aggregate fdi data as opposed to firm level information on measured tax effects the implications of bilateral effective tax rates and the possible presence of publication bias in primary research

temporary boycotts as self fulfilling disruptions of markets abstract this paper demonstrates how equilibrium involving anticipated boycotts and actual boycotts can occur even though consumers are negligible and only care about the price they pay and the timing of purchase the model is a two period durable goods monopoly game with demand uncertainty first a non boycott equilibrium is characterized under regularity assumptions ruling out multiplicative uncertainty there are additional equilibria in which the firm sets a low price in period 0 based on the anticipation that consumers will boycott whenever the price exceeds a threshold also the augmented game with a publicly observed sunspot has equilibria in which boycotts occur on the equilibrium path with positive probability

on the future of macroeconomics a new monetarist perspective this article argues that a pressing goal for macroeconomics is to incorporate financial considerations but we need models with solid microfoundations in particular the use of assets in facilitating exchange as well as different credit or other financial arrangements should be outcomes of not inputs to theories as a preview i suggest that mainstream macro does a good job explaining many phenomena and a financial crisis does not disprove such theory but understanding crises requires better incorporating factors related to money credit banking and liquidity the approach called new monetarist economics can help a lot in this regard

the role of independence in the green lin diamond dybvig model abstract green and lin study a version of the diamond dybvig model with a finite number of agents independence independent determination of each agent s type and sequential service for special preferences they show that the ex ante first best allocation is the unique equilibrium outcome of the model with private information about types via a simple argument it is shown that uniqueness of the truth telling equilibrium holds for general preferences and in particular for a constrained efficient allocation whether first best or not the crucial assumption is independence

empirical asymmetries in foreign direct investment and taxation abstract this paper assesses the sensitivity of the operations of multinational corporations mncs to host country taxation the empirical analysis is based on two different measures of mnc activity by u s majority owned foreign affiliates panel data for aggregate real gross product in manufacturing that originates in a given host country and micro data for a single year regarding the likelihood of a firm locating in a given host country the empirical estimates indicate that investment geared toward export markets rather than the domestic market is particularly sensitive to host country taxation that this sensitivity appears to be greater in developing countries than developed countries and that it is becoming greater over time

infrastructure investment a review essay economists try not to be faddists but they often cannot help themselves while work on a topic should mirror the prospective importance of the topic that situation seems to occur with disappointing frequency instead the usual pattern is that some reasonably important topic will be totally ignored for the longest time then recognized and then the subject of a flurry of work all out of proportion to its likely long run importance nowhere has this speculative bubble of economic research been more clearly illustrated than with infrastructure investment macroeconomists havelong felt that the stock of public capital is an important factor input in the production of total output macroeconomists have known that u s productivity growth slowed dramatically in about 1973 and macroeconomists should have known that united states investment in public capital has been down since the late 1960s yet analysis of the u s productivity slowdown completely ignored infrastructure investment for the first fifteen years of this slowdown concentrating instead on energy prices social regulation the composition of the work force research and development different rates of obsolescence of the private capital stock and any number of other matters the public capital stock was hardly ever even mentioned as a potential factor in the productivity slowdown aschauer changed all that he wrote a series of papers 1989a 1989b 1989c that put these two movements together econometrically infrastructure investment turned down and aggregate productivity turned down slightly later both in the united states and in some other developed countries his work hit the magic button those who had worried about the productivity puzzle for fifteen years welcomed a new suspect those who were worried about low rates of u s national saving welcomed a new way to make their argument even more forcefully than with official figures on saving and investment which do not count infrastructure investment as investment political liberals and liberal politicians saw a way to rescue government spending and projects from the assaults of reaganism and even a way to avoid oth

monitoring the monitor an incentive structure for a financial intermediary this paper studies financial intermediation i e delegated monitoring in a costly state verification model there are a finite number of agents thus the intermediary cannot fully diversify its portfolio and is subject to default risk the role of the intermediary is to satisfy simultaneously the different portfolio preferences of borrowers and lenders two questions arise when a delegated monitor is subject to non trivial default risk a what arrangement solves the problem of monitoring the monitor b what intermediary portfolio accomplishes optimal asset transformation between borrowers and lenders unlike previous delegated monitoring studies the law of large numbers is not sufficient to obtain our results instead we appeal to a stronger results the large deviation principle which establishes that convergence in the law of large numbers is exponential

foreign direct investment and european integration in the 1990s this paper examines the effects of eu integration in the 1990s on the fdi relations in europe we find that the completion of the single market the 1995 enlargement and the so called eastern enlargement are characterised by a substantial positive anticipation effect in the period between the announcement and the formal establishment of each integration step neither the single market programme nor the previous enlargement exhibited any further positive effects on intra eu fdi volumes after their establishment

financial intermediation and delegated monitoring this paper develops a theory of financial intermediation based on minimizing the cost of monitoring information which is useful for resolving incentive problems between borrowers and lenders it presents a characterization of the costs of providing incentives for delegated monitoring by a financial intermediary diversification within an intermediary serves to reduce these costs even in a risk neutral economy the paper presents some more general analysis of the effect of diversification on resolving incentive problems in the environment assumed in the model debt contracts with costly bankruptcy are shown to be optimal the analysis has implications for the portfolio structure and capital structure of intermediaries

optimal diamond dybvig mechanism in large economies with aggregate uncertainty abstract this paper characterizes the direct mechanism which implements the constrained optimal outcome in a version of diamond and dybvig 1983 with aggregate uncertainty and a continuum of agents using this result numerical examples where the best direct mechanism has a bank run equilibrium are easily obtained

interest rates and financial fragility abstract how do the interest rates banks earn on their assets affect the susceptibility of the banking system to a self fulfilling run by depositors i study this question in a version of the model of diamond and dybvig 1983 with limited commitment and a non trivial portfolio choice i show that the relationship between these interest rates and financial fragility is often non monotone for example a small increase in the return on illiquid investment or a small increase in the term premium may raise banks susceptibility to a run while a larger increase would make the banking system more stable the same is true for changes in short term rates holding the longer term rates fixed i provide a precise characterization of these comparative statics of financial fragility

run equilibria in the green lin model of financial intermediation abstract we study the green lin model of financial intermediation e j green p lin implementing efficient allocations in a model of financial intermediation j econ theory 109 2003 1 23 under a more general specification of the distribution of types across agents we derive the efficient allocation in closed form we show that in some cases the intermediary cannot uniquely implement the efficient allocation using a direct revelation mechanism in these cases the mechanism also admits an equilibrium in which some but not all agents run on the intermediary and withdraw their funds regardless of their true liquidity needs in other words self fulfilling runs can arise in a generalized green lin model and these runs are necessarily partial with only some agents participating

risk financial stability and fdi all foreign direct investment fdi involves risk augmenting the international finance literature we assess the effects of financial system risk on fdi trends through considering both origin and host country effects motivated by the sovereign debt crisis and based on a dataset including bilateral fdi holdings this paper investigates the implications of sovereign and bank related risk on fdi in the eurozone strikingly we find that in terms of banking risk it is only that encountered in the country of origin that has an impact on fdi choices however we find that sovereign risk in both origin and host countries have effects as a corollary we suggest that although poor financial discipline by host governments has been widely blamed as the primary factor likely to frighten off overseas investors it is amongst fdi supplying nations that the effects of sovereign yields seem most pronounced policymakers in countries seeking to attract fdi should not only be attentive to domestic conditions but also be aware of the financing environment that multinational enterprises mnes encounter in their home countries and how this might impact on their choices

the role of demandable debt in structuring optimal banking arrangements demandable debt finance by banks warrants explanation because it entails costs of bank suspension liquidation and idle reserve holdings an explanation is developed in which demandable debt provides incentive compatible intermediation where the banker has comparative advantage in allocating investment funds but may act against the interests of uninformed depositors demandable debt attracts funds by giving depositors an option to force liquidation its usefulness in transacting follows from information sharing between monitors and nonmonitors copyright 1991 by american economic association

truthful revelation in the diamond and dybvig banking environment abstract the welfare analysis in the diamond and dybvig banking literature has been conducted by appealing to the revelation principle the best banking arrangement that induces truthtelling by depositors is characterized and it is asserted presumably by appeal to the revelation principle that no other arrangement could give higher welfare this appeal to the revelation principle is however not straightforward because the diamond and dybvig environment includes a sequential service constraint which is not present in standard formulations of the revelation principle this paper justifies the use of the revelation principle in sequential service environments

the impact of agricultural extension on farm production in resettlement areas of zimbabwe in this paper we revisit the contested issue of the impact of agricultural extension on farm production we exploit two features of the data available to us its longitudinal nature and explicit measures of farmer ability we find that after controlling for innate productivity characteristics and farmer ability either using household fixed effects estimation or by including a measure of farmer ability and village fixed effects access to agricultural extension services defined as receiving one or two visits per agricultural year raises the value of crop production by about 15 per cent this parameter estimate is statistically significant however we also find variability in these parameter estimates across individual crop years with the impact being markedly different in drought and non drought years collectively these results suggest that although access to farm level extension visits does increase productivity even after controlling for innate productivity characteristics and farmer ability results from single year cross sectional studies should be treated with caution

infrastructure endowment and corporate income taxes as determinants of foreign direct investment in central and eastern european countries this paper analyses the importance of taxes on corporate income and production related tangible infrastructure as determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in central and eastern european countries ceecs we operationalise taxes using effective average tax rates on the bilateral level and employ indices derived from principal component analysis as a proxy for the infrastructure endowment in the empirical analysis we control for a possible interrelation between taxes and infrastructure as determinants of fdi an issue usually neglected in the literature specifically a favourable infrastructure endowment may compensate for relatively high taxes hence higher taxes may not deter fdi the results from our panel econometric analysis of bilateral outward fdi flows of seven home countries in eight ceecs for the 1995 2004 period in an augmented gravity model setting show that i both taxes and infrastructure play a role in the location decisions made by multinational enterprises ii telecommunication and transport infrastructure are of special significance to fdi and iii the tax rate sensitivity of fdi indeed decreases with the level of infrastructure endowment copyright 2009 the authors journal compilation 2009 blackwell publishing ltd

the effect of the euro on foreign direct investment abstract in this paper the recent effect of the european monetary union on inward fdi flows is examined using a difference in differences approach the estimated results show that the introduction of the euro raised inward fdi flows by approximately 16 within the euro area by approximately 11 to non members and weakly by around 8 from non member countries into the euro area moreover the geographical effects of the euro are explored the results show partial agglomeration tendencies for the euro area there are also some indications of increased importance of vertical specialization in the sample

panic bank runs we provide experimental evidence that panic bank runs occur in the absence of problems with fundamentals and coordination failures among depositors the two main culprits identified in the literature depositors withdraw when they observe that others do so even when theoretically they should not our findings suggest that panic also manifests itself in the beliefs of depositors who overestimate the probability that a bank run is underway loss aversion has a predictive power on panic behavior while risk or ambiguity aversion do not

fdi performance a stochastic frontier analysis of location and variance determinants the opening up process of the eastern european countries was marked by greater integration of fdi with their western neighbouring countries using the single step ml approach to stochastic frontier analysis the location and variance determinants of fdi are estimated using the knowledge capital kk model framework the findings based on a panel of bilateral fdi stocks from 10 western to 10 eastern european countries over the 1996 2007 period suggest fdi is determined by both horizontal and vertical motives while the process of liberalization and infrastructural developments significantly reduces the variance of fdi in using a stochastic frontier specification of the kk model the efficiency of fdi performance is identified relative to maximum levels the bilateral efficiency scores suggest a mixed performance indicating scope to improve the efficiency of fdi

liquidity uncertainty and intermediation the paper performs a welfare comparison between demand deposit and equity contracts in the presence of intrinsic aggregate uncertainty in this framework the welfare dominance of deposit contracts emerges under corner preferences it is shown that aggregate uncertainty creates high price volatility of ex dividend equity claims traded in a secondary market and the resulting consumption allocations offer less risk sharing opportunities to risk averse consumers than tailor made deposit contracts the contingency of early payoffs on depositors withdrawal order reinforces the welfare performance of deposit contracts whereas costly liquidation of productive long term investments deteriorates their welfare performance relative to equity contracts

on the effects of deposit insurance and observability on bank runs an experimental study we study the effects of deposit insurance and observability of previous actions on the emergence of bank runs by means of a controlled laboratory experiment we consider three depositors in the line of a bank who decide between withdrawing or keeping their money deposited we have three treatments with different levels of deposit insurance which reflect the losses a depositor may incur in the case of a bank run we find that different levels of deposit insurance and the possibility of observing other depositors actions affect the likelihood of bank runs when decisions are not observable higher levels of deposit insurance decrease the probability of bank runs when decisions are observable this need not to be the case these results suggest that i observability might be considered as a partial substitute of deposit insurance and ii the optimal deposit insurance should take into account the degree of observability

the determinants of foreign direct investment in transition economies a meta analysis in this paper we conduct a meta analysis of studies that empirically examine the relationship between economic transformation and foreign direct investment fdi performance in central and eastern europe and the former soviet union over the past quarter century more specifically we synthesise the empirical evidence reported in previous studies that deal with the determinants of fdi in transition economies focusing on the impacts of transition factors we also perform meta regression analysis to specify determinant factors of the heterogeneity among the relevant studies and the presence of publication selection bias we find that the existing literature reports a statistically significant non zero effect as a whole and a genuine effect is confirmed for some fdi determinants beyond the publication selection bias

international investment location decisions abstract in international location tournaments governments compete for foreign investment with tax and other short run incentives such tournaments can be won if agglomeration economies are sufficiently powerful to overcome investors desire to spread investments as a hedge against risk we focus on manufacturing investments by u s multinationals in the 1980s our econometric results suggest that agglomeration economies are indeed the dominant influence on investor calculations paradoxically short run incentives have limited apparent impact on location choice we conclude that high cost tournament play is unnecessary for countries with good infrastructure development specialized input suppliers and an expanding domestic market

bailouts and financial fragility how does the belief that policymakers will bail out investors in the event of a crisis affect the allocation of resources and the stability of the financial system i study this question in a model of financial intermediation with limited commitment when a crisis occurs the efficient policy response is to use public resources to augment the private consumption of those investors facing losses the anticipation of such a bailout distorts ex ante incentives leading intermediaries to choose arrangements with excessive illiquidity and thereby increasing financial fragility prohibiting bailouts is not necessarily desirable however it induces intermediaries to become too liquid from a social point of view and may in addition leave the economy more susceptible to a crisis a policy of taxing short term liabilities in contrast can correct the incentive problem while improving financial stability