competitive incentives working harder or working smarter almost all jobs require a combination of cognitive effort and labor effort this paper focuses on the effect that competitive incentive schemes have on the chosen combination of these two types of efforts we use an experimental approach to show that competitive incentives may induce agents to work harder but not necessarily smarter this effect was stronger for women this paper was accepted by john list behavioral economics

daily wages and piece rates in agrarian economies the paper presents an analysis of the coexistence of daily wage and piece rate contracts in agrarian economies we show that when individual effort is taken into account daily wage labourers typically form a convex set in the space of working ability the most able and the least able labourers work on piece rates as they can thus choose their own level of effort we also prove that on a monopsonistic labour market the use of both contracts in equilibrium results from the profitability of market segmentation imperfect substitutability between workers under different contracts and the downward rigidity of daily wages can also explain the coexistence of the two types of contracts in more general settings e g perfect competition q 1999 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

techno economic analysis and environmental impact assessment of a 10 mw biomass based power plant in malaysia abstract considering that renewable energy is the primary energy source in the future this study investigates biomass power for sustainable and secure energy supply biomass fuels in malaysia include empty fruit bunch mesocarp fiber palm kernel shell oil palm frond oil palm trunk from palm oil plantation and woody biomass from forests the moisture content and heating value of palm oil based biomass fuels are analyzed relative to their cost savings in a 10 mw biomass power plant the net present value internal rate of return and payback period for various finance options and at various system efficiencies are also presented results indicate that for an empty fruit bunch priced at myr 20 t without loan the net present values are myr 45 31 million myr 54 32 million and myr 57 74 million with 20 30 and 40 system efficiencies respectively the internal rates of returns are 21 88 22 and 21 11 respectively and the payback periods are 4 16 4 20 and 4 22 y respectively the 10 mw plant releases 50 130 t less co 2 750 t less so 2 218 65 t less nox and 22 83 t less co emissions in the environment compared with the existing energy mix

shadow banking and the financial side of financialisation this paper tries to shed some light on the nature and functioning of shadow banking with a special focus on its role in the evolution of financialization as well as in sharpening income and wealth inequality on the one hand it discusses how securitization has allowed traditional banks to expand their business providing the financial system with the raw materials for the manufacturing of complex structured financial products on the other hand it questions the view of traditional and shadow banks as two parallel and alternative systems claiming that financialization did not alter the role of commercial banks as money creators but rather diverted endogenously created money to the financial sphere feeding its expansion finally our work discusses some policy options for the de financialization of the economy through more progressive taxation of the financial sector as well as a stronger engagement to reduce income and wealth inequality

modern money theory and the facts of experience this paper discusses modern money theory mmt with a particular focus on the role of the state in its monetary system and the nature of money it addresses the main differences between the orthodox heterodox and mmt approaches to monetary theory while reconciling endogenous money theory with the state money approach by emphasising the symmetry between how banks create money as they finance private spending and how the government creates money when it finances its own spending we clarify some of the misconceptions surrounding mmt while showing that it is more consistent with the facts of experience furthermore we argue that mmt s insistence that government spending or lending must precede bond sales is consistent with the keynesian emphasis on effective demand as the driving force behind income and saving we delve into mmt s implications for monetary and fiscal policy with a particular focus on the eurozone we conclude our paper by discussing two proposals of monetary cranks narrow banking and government issue of debt free money this allows us to re emphasise mmt s views on the nature of money

how investible is bitcoin analyzing the liquidity and transaction costs of bitcoin markets abstract we examine the investibility of bitcoin by exploring the trading dynamics and market microstructure of bitcoin on three us cryptocurrency exchanges using high frequency intraday data of individual trades and quotes although all exchanges offer continuous trading we find that the highest trading activity highest volatility and lowest spreads coincide with us market trading hours suggesting that most trades are non algorithmic and executed by retail investors we further find that average quoted and effective spreads for bitcoin are lower than spreads on major equity exchanges implying that bitcoin is highly investible for retail size transactions

bitcoin for energy commodities before and after the december 2013 crash diversifier hedge or safe haven abstractwe study the relationship between bitcoin and commodities by assessing the ability of bitcoin to act as a diversifier hedge or safe haven against daily movements in commodities in general and energy commodities in particular we focus on energy commodities because energy in the form of electricity is an essential input in the bitcoin production for the entire period results show that bitcoin is a strong hedge and a safe haven against movements in both commodity indices we further examine whether that ability is also present for non energy commodities and our analysis show insignificant results when energy commodities are excluded from the general commodity index we also account for the december 2013 bitcoin price crash and our results reveal that bitcoin hedge and safe haven properties against commodities and energy commodities are only present in the pre crash period whereas in the post crash period bitcoin is no more than a diversifier in addition to uncovering the time varying role o

speculative bubbles in bitcoin markets an empirical investigation into the fundamental value of bitcoin amid its rapidly increasing usage and immense public interest the subject of bitcoin has raised profound economic and societal issues in this paper we undertake economic and econometric modelling of bitcoin prices as with many asset classes we show that bitcoin exhibits speculative bubbles further we find empirical evidence that the fundamental price of bitcoin is zero

volatility estimation for bitcoin a comparison of garch models we explore the optimal conditional heteroskedasticity model with regards to goodness of fit to bitcoin price data it is found that the best model is the ar cgarch model highlighting the significance of including both a short run and a long run component of the conditional variance

booms busts and heavy tails the story of bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets abstract we develop bespoke rational bubble models for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies that incorporate both heavy tails and the probability of a complete collapse in asset prices empirically we present robustified evidence of bubbles in bitcoin and ethereum theoretically we show that liquidity risks may generate heavy tails in bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets even in the absence of bubbles dramatic booms and busts can occur we thus sound a timely note of caution

platform competition in two sided markets many if not most markets with network externalities are two sided to succeed platforms in industries such as software portals and media payment systems and the internet must get both sides of the market on board accordingly platforms devote much attention to their business model that is to how they court each side while making money overall this paper builds a model of platform competition with two sided markets it unveils the determinants of price allocation and end user surplus for different governance structures profit maximizing platforms and not for profit joint undertakings and compares the outcomes with those under an integrated monopolist and a ramsey planner jel l5 l82 l86 l96

solvency rule versus taylor rule an alternative interpretation of the relation between monetary policy and the economic crisis one of the more debated interpretations of the economic crisis that started in 2007 08 is based on the taylor rule equation namely the idea that over the period 2002 05 the fed has implemented a low interest policy that has led to the housing bubble and finally to the great recession this paper shows that the taylor rule equation not only rests on the so called new consensus macroeconomics but also on the neoclassical theory of growth the various criticisms raised against these theoretical foundations suggest that interpretations of the great recession based on the taylor rule equation are building their arguments on shaky theoretical premises furthermore this paper shows that an equation formally similar but logically alternative to the taylor rule can be regarded as the expression of a general condition of solvency of firms and workers according to this solvency rule the prevailing outcome of monetary policy decisions is the regulation of insolvencies

money moral authority and the politics of creditworthiness this article moves beyond current controversies on the nature of money by suggesting that a general social process allows different kinds of organizations and networks from states to banks to local communities to produce currencies that is the articulation of criteria of creditworthiness or what i call the exercise of moral authority bankers specialize in moral authority but when that authority is contested challenging groups must articulate alternative criteria of creditworthiness for their currencies to become stable and acceptable i illustrate these processes with historical material from the postbellum united states which i use to discuss why the federal government failed to create a stable financial system and why local bankers engaged in a process of financial innovation that further destabilized money i conclude with reflections on the shifting structural sources of moral authority which have made the local level a springboard for destabilizing financial innovations

high powered performance pay and crowding out of nonmonetary motives a previous literature cautions that paying workers for performance might crowd out nonmonetary motives to work hard empirical evidence from the field however has been based on between subjects designs that are best suited for detecting crowding out due to low powered incentives high powered incentives in the workplace tend to increase output but it is unknown whether this masks crowding out this paper uses a within subject experimental design and finds evidence that crowding out also extends to high powered incentives in a real work setting with paid workers there is individual heterogeneity however with a minority of workers reporting crowding in of motivation thus the impact of performance pay might depend on the mix of worker types data and the online appendix are available at https doi org 10 1287 mnsc 2017 2846 this paper was accepted by uri gneezy behavioral economics

subjective performance measures in optimal incentive contracts objective measures of performance are seldom perfect in response incentive contracts often include important subjective components that mitigate incentive distortions caused by imperfect objective measures this paper explores the combined use of subjective and objective performance measures in respectively implicit and explicit incentive contracts naturally objective and subjective measures often are substitutes sometimes strikingly so we show that if objective measures are sufficiently close to perfect then no implicit contracts are feasible because the firm s fallback position after reneging on an implicit contract is too attractive we also show however that objective and subjective measures can reinforce each other if objective measures become more accurate then in some circumstances the optimal contract puts more weight on subjective measures because the improved objective measures increase the value of the ongoing relationship and so reduce the firm s incentive to renege we also analyze the use of subjective weights on objective performance measures and provide case study evidence consistent with our analyses

the ontology of money tony lawson s recent foray into social ontology in this journal takes as its subject money this essay examines lawson s ontological analysis of money with a view to clarifying the compatibility between his ontological position and credit theories of money especially those which stand in the chartalist tradition it also examines lawson s claims about commodity theories of money in light of credit theorists pronunciations on commodity theories

can cryptocurrencies be a safe haven a tail risk perspective analysis abstractcryptocurrencies are one of the most promising financial innovations of the last decade different from major stock indices and the commodities of gold and crude oil the cryptocurrencies e

fairness and incentives in a multi task principal agent model this paper reports on a two task principal agent experiment in which only one task is contractible the principal can either offer a piece rate contract or a voluntary bonus to the agent bonus contracts strongly outperform piece rate contracts many principals reward high effort on both tasks with substantial bonuses agents anticipate this and provide high effort on both tasks in contrast almost all agents with a piece rate contract focus on the first task and disregard the second principals understand this and predominantly offer bonus contracts this behavior contradicts the self interest theory but is consistent with theories of fairness

on the value of virtual currencies nous construisons un modele d analyse pour cerner les facteurs qui influent sur le taux de change des monnaies virtuelles trois elements importent tout d abord l utilisation actuelle d une monnaie virtuelle comme moyen de paiement ensuite la decision d investisseurs prospectifs d acheter de la monnaie virtuelle et de controler ainsi l offre de ce type de monnaie enfin les facteurs qui determineront ensemble l adoption d une monnaie virtuelle par les consommateurs et son acceptation par les commercants

optimal vs naive diversification in cryptocurrencies abstract this paper contributes to the literature on cryptocurrencies by examining the performance of naive 1 n and optimal markowitz diversification in a portfolio of four popular cryptocurrencies we employ weekly data with weekly rebalancing and show there is very little to select between naive diversification and optimal diversification our results hold for different levels of risk aversion and an alternative estimation window

piece rates fixed wages and incentives evidence from a field experiment data from a field experiment are used to estimate the gain in productivity that is realized when workers are paid piece rates rather than fixed wages the experiment was conducted within a tree planting firm and provides daily observations on individual worker productivity under both compensation systems unrestricted statistical methods estimate the productivity gain to be 20 since planting conditions potentially affect incentives structural econometric methods are used to generalize the experimental results to out of sample conditions the structural results suggest that the average productivity gain outside of the experimental conditions would be at least 21 7

diversity and security in uk electricity generation the influence of low carbon objectives abstract we explore the relationship between low carbon objectives and the strategic security of electricity in the context of the uk electricity system we consider diversity of fuel source mix to represent one dimension of security robustness against interruptions of any one source and apply two different diversity indices to the range of electricity system scenarios produced by the uk government and independent researchers our results show that low carbon objectives are uniformly associated with greater long term diversity in uk electricity generation with reference to data on wind generation we also consider the impact of source variability on a second dimension of security the reliability of generation availability we conclude that this does not undermine our fundamental conclusion that low carbon scenarios are associated with greater strategic security of supply in uk electricity we discuss reasons for this result explore sensitivities and briefly discuss possible policy instruments associated with diversity and their limitations

international trade and exchange rate volatility for currencies with well developed forward markets several papers have investigated the conjectured negative relationship between trade and short term exchange rate volatility without being very successful a theoretical explanation for the empirical anomalies is provided by solving explicitly for the forward rate because importers and exporters are on opposite sides of the forward market so is their exposure towards exchange rate volatility moreover which trade flow benefits and which one loses from increased volatility is determined by the signs of the aggregate net foreign currency exposure and the aggregate measure of risk aversion

ena based evaluation of energy supply security comparison between the chinese crude oil and natural gas supply systems abstract energy has become a scarce global strategic resource and energy supply security is receiving increasing attention a common evaluation platform is necessary to systematically understand the supply security levels of different energy sources and help make the national energy strategy ecological network analysis ena is thus regarded as a useful common tool to systematically simulate evaluate and compare the supply security for different energy sources when considering the fact that modern energy systems have formed a complex global energy network through extensive energy trading based on the established ena platform we evaluated and compared china s crude oil and natural gas supply security from 2000 to 2012 to this end we assessed the overall security level investigated the relationship among different compartments within the network system determined the system s structure and analyzed the system s properties it was found that the chinese crude oil supply security level was higher than that of the natural gas supply and that the crude oil supply system was more mature in terms of multiple properties suggestions are proposed to improve the chinese energy supply security based on further scenario analysis including increasing domestic energy production controlling energy consumption diversifying foreign supply sources and strengthening the strategic reserve the ena based common platform can be used for the systematic evaluation and improvement of energy supply security and further support national energy policymaking for both developed and developing countries both energy importers and exporters

bitcoin futures what use are they abstract early analysis of bitcoin concluded that it did not meet the economic conditions to be classified as a currency since this conclusion interest in bitcoin has increased substantially we investigate whether the introduction of futures trading in bitcoin is able to resolve the issues that stopped bitcoin from being considered a currency our analysis shows that spot volatility has increased following the appearance of futures contracts that futures contracts are not an effective hedging instrument and that price discovery is driven by uninformed investors in the spot market we therefore argue that the conclusion that bitcoin is a speculative asset rather than a currency is not altered by the introduction of futures trading

volatility and return jumps in bitcoin abstract in this article we are interested in understanding the dynamics of bitcoin daily returns and volatility cryptocurrencies have very high unconditional volatility and are subject to sudden massive price swings we start with a standard log normal stochastic volatility model then explore two formulations which incorporate discontinuous jumps to volatility and returns jumps to volatility are permanent while jumps to mean returns have contemporaneous effects only results point to two high volatility periods the first from late 2013 to early 2014 likely associated to the mt gox incident the second covers the year of 2017 peaking on december likely driven by increased popular attention jumps to mean returns are specially relevant to capture large price variations mostly negative associated with formative events in cryptocurrency markets such as hacks and unsuccessful fork attempts

power sector reform in developing countries mismatched agendas power sector reform is rapidly spreading across all corners of the developing world at an alarmingly rapid pace while the rationales for reform seem to have gained acceptance among the stakeholders the reform model and process are contested this paper examines the impacts of reform using the promised outcomes as a basis for analysis the ability of reform to meet the developmental challenges facing the reformers is explored it concludes that reform has had some achievements if conventional performance indicators are used but also questions the validity of some of these indicators reform has however not fulfilled many of its goals and the prevailing recipes are likely to leave developing countries socially and economically worse off than in the pre reform period progressive government intervention is needed to shift reform process towards a more responsible development path

how does the informed trading impact bitcoin returns and volatility this study employed an augmented ar gjrgarch model that incorporates an intraday based buy sell order size imbalance measure to explore how informed trading behaviour activity impacted bitcoin retu

viewpoint a microfoundation of monetary economics in this lecture i explain what the microfoundations of money are about and why they are necessary for monetary economics then i review recent developments of a particular microfoundation of money commonly known as the search theory of money finally i outline some unresolved issues dans cette presentation l auteur explique ce que sont les microfondations de la monnaie et pourquoi elles sont necessaires a l economie monetaire ensuite il passe en revue certains developpements recents d une microfondation particuliere de la monnaie connue sous le nom de theorie de la recherche de la monnaie enfin l auteur fait le tour d un ensemble de problemes qui restent sans solution pour le moment

is bitcoin a commodity on price jumps demand shocks and certainty of supply abstract this paper discusses how similar bitcoin is to a commodity the application of a number of both linear and non linear garch models indicates that the role of extreme price movements is particularly pronounced garch models with student t innovations as well as combined jump garch models are among the models with the best fit the role of large movements is found to be stronger in the bitcoin market than in the markets for crude oil and gold as bitcoin shares with these exhaustible resource commodities characteristics such as the fixed supply the analysis of bitcoin prices can generally learn from the analysis of exhaustible resource commodities however whereas the short run supply of gold and oil are uncertain there are no uncertainties on the bitcoin supply side thus the observed movements of bitcoin prices can be interpreted as results of bitcoin demand shocks

the role of the state and the hierarchy of money this paper uses minsky s definition of money as a two sided balance sheet phenomenon to challenge many common positions on the nature evolution and role of money his definition is applied to two opposing theories in the history of monetary debates and it is shown that the chartalists as opposed to the metallists developed a general theory of money that can be applied equally convincingly to the entire era of state money this theory is then used to show that the state s power to make and enforce tax laws renders its money the most acceptable form of debt within what can be considered a hierarchy of monies this leads to some important policy implications as well as a strengthening of the endogenous money position copyright 2001 by oxford university press

on the indeterminacy of equilibrium exchange rates in this paper we consider a particular international economic policy regime the laissez faire regime the distinguishing features of which are unrestricted portfolio choice and floating exchange rates and as we show this regime although favored by many economists is not economically feasible it does not have a determinate equilibrium that is an implication of an overlapping generations model more basically it is an implication of the notion that money is wanted only in order to accomplish trades

the inefficiency of bitcoin bitcoin has received much attention in the media and by investors in recent years although there remains scepticism and a lack of understanding of this cryptocurrency we add to the literature on bitcoin by studying the market efficiency of bitcoin through a battery of robust tests evidence reveals that returns are significantly inefficient over our full sample but when we split our sample into two subsample periods we find that some tests indicate that bitcoin is efficient in the latter period therefore we conclude that bitcoin in an inefficient market but may be in the process of moving towards an efficient market

social positioning and the nature of money the question of the nature of money is pursued drawing on results generated in the field of social ontology as well as on observations from history the conception of the nature of money found in this manner to be the most sustainable is compared to various other prominent if usually held to be mutually incompatible theories

momentum trading in cryptocurrencies short term returns and diversification benefits abstract we test for the presence of momentum effects in cryptocurrency market and estimate dynamic conditional correlations dccs of returns between momentum portfolios of cryptocurrencies and traditional assets first investment portfolios are constructed adherent to the classic j k momentum strategy using daily data from twelve cryptocurrencies for over a period of three years we identify the existence of momentum effect which is highly significant for short term portfolios but disappears over the longer term second we show that cross correlations of weekly returns between momentum portfolio of cryptocurrencies and traditional assets are unlike correlations of returns between traditional assets third we find that momentum portfolios of cryptocurrencies not only offer diversification benefits but also can be a hedge and safe haven for traditional assets

long memory and efficiency of bitcoin under heavy tails the long memory is usually defined via auto covariances which further connect with hurst exponent the heavy tails in bitcoin returns can cause infinite auto covariances which make the analysis of

microfoundations for a stable demand for money function scientific revolutions seldom occur when the prevailing theories appear to be performing well it is only when the accepted theory fails to offer a satisfactory explanation of events that new and more robust theories are proposed of these new theories the one which can explain the successful performance of the previous theory and also the events which led to its demise becomes the replacement so it is in the history of modern monetary economics the failure of the partial adjustment model in the mid s is well documented in the united kingdom and the united states and the search for a replacement has been the main point on the agenda since that time there are many contending theories some of which are advocated by the other contributors to this controversy but the mark of a truly better theory which can be claimed to supersede the partial adjustment model is one that can explain the success and the breakdown of the previous theory as well as the events subsequently central to the argument of this paper is the importance of individual behaviour in the context of a market for monetary assets only by means of careful investigation of the microeconomic behaviour underpinning monetary economics at the individual and the market level can the stability of the money demand function be restored it is the purpose of this paper to suggest that the buffer stock approach has gone further than other approaches in dealing with the fundamental micro foundations of the demand for money it does not suggest that other approaches have no microfoundations but they tend to concentrate exclusively on specific aspects of the micro structure such as separability and ignore others relating to the behaviour of individual optimisers in a monetary market the buffer stock model has firm micro foundations which can explain the events both before and after the breakdown of the partial adjustment model section i provides an historical background to the debate and section ii gives a brief overview of buffer stock models which shows that unlike other approaches they have been able to reconcile the past success of the partial adjustment model with its present failure the nature of the microfoundations of buffer stock models are the source of the success and are discussed in more detail in section iii the final section evaluates the buffer stock approach in the light of the other alternatives

an application of extreme value theory to cryptocurrencies we study the tail behaviour of the returns of five major cryptocurrencies by employing an extreme value analysis and estimating value at risk and expected shortfall as tail risk measures we find that bitcoin cash is the riskiest while bitcoin and litecoin are the least risky cryptocurrencies

carrots that look like sticks toward an understanding of multitasking incentive schemes constructing compensation schemes for effort in multidimensional tasks is complex particularly when some dimensions are not easily observable when incentive schemes contractually reward workers for easily observed measures such as quantity produced the standard model predicts that unrewarded dimensions such as quality will be neglected yet there remains mixed empirical evidence in favor of this standard principal agent model prediction this article reconciles the literature using both theory and empirical evidence the theory outlines conditions under which principals can use a piece rate scheme to induce higher quantity and quality levels than analogous fixed wage schemes making use of a series of complementary laboratory and field experiments we show that this effect occurs because the agent is uncertain about the principal s monitoring ability and the principal s choice of a piece rate signals to the agent that she is efficient at monitoring

piece rates fixed wages and incentive effects statistical evidence from payroll records we develop and estimate an agency model of worker behavior under piece rates and fixed wages the model implies optimal decision rules for the firm s choice of a compensation system as a function of working conditions our model also implies an upper and lower bound to the incentive effect the productivity gain realized by paying workers piece rates rather than fixed wages that can be estimated using regression methods using daily productivity data collected from the payroll records of a british columbia tree planting firm we estimate these bounds to be an 8 8 and a 60 4 percent increase in productivity structural estimation which accounts for the firm s optimal choice of a compensation system suggests that incentives caused a 22 6 percent increase in productivity however only part of this increase represents valuable output because workers respond to incentives in part by reducing quality

on the predictive power of arji volatility forecasts for bitcoin motivated by the recent literature on cryptocurrency volatility dynamics this paper adopts the arji garch egarch and cgarch models to explore their capabilities to make out of sample volatility

currency competition network externalities and switching costs towards an alternative view of optimum currency areas existing models of currency competition and monetary union ignore network effects and switching costs this paper develops a simple model that incorporates these features and shows how it can be used to shed light on observed monetary experience and current issues in international monetary relations it explains why agents will often be reluctant to switch currencies highlights the role of expectations and sheds light on the nature of currency competition and the effect of legal restrictions copyright 1993 by royal economic society

cryptocurrencies and business ethics cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin setlcoin ether solar coin or liberty reserve exist since 2009 because of their decentralized control they are often considered a threat or alternative to the conventional centralized banking system while the technological implication of some such currencies especially of bitcoin has attracted much attention so far there is little discussion about the entire field of cryptocurrencies and very little academic literature addressing its ethical significance in this article we thus address the impact of blockchain technology on the nature of financial transactions from a business ethics perspective we begin with a survey on relevant literature from neighboring disciplines next we work towards a 3 3 framework for current debates on the ethics of cryptocurrencies see table 1 we combine the micro meso and macro levels of business and society with assessments of the potential ethical impact of cryptocurrencies as morally beneficial detrimental and ambiguous in addition we highlight possible avenues for future research such as the changing roles of the miners and regulators the prosocial use of cryptocurrencies the antisocial use for shadow banking and transactions in the dark net and cryptocurrencies effect on inflation and deflation

modelling the dynamics of bitcoin and litecoin garch versus stochastic volatility models abstractwe examine and compare a large number of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic garch and stochastic volatility sv models using series of bitcoin and litecoin price retu

clean evidence on peer effects we study subjects who were asked to fill letters into envelopes with a remuneration independent of output in the pair treatment two subjects worked at the same time in the same room and peer effects were possible in the single treatment subjects worked alone and peer effects were ruled out we find evidence of peer effects in the pair treatment because the standard deviations of output are smaller within pairs than between pairs moreover average output is higher in the pair treatment thus peer effects raise productivity finally low productivity workers are the most sensitive to the behavior of peers

crypto currencies an introduction to not so funny moneys we introduce the distributed ledger blockchain technology of crypto currencies we examine the monetary attributes of crypto currencies and describe some of the reasons they have been adopted the paper discusses the mechanics of bitcoin the original crypto currency to illustrate the fundamental elements of decentralized crypto currencies we then provide a high level summary of the implications of crypto currencies for consumers financial systems and for monetary and regulatory authorities we argue that crypto currencies are unlikely to supplant traditional fiat currencies and we anticipate an enduring role for financial intermediaries in facilitating credit

what causes the attention of bitcoin bitcoin has received enormous attention both by the media and investors alike but why has bitcoin received such attention this paper answers this question by examining the relationship between investor attention and bitcoin fundamentals and finds that realized volatility and volume are both significant drivers of next day attention of bitcoin

announcement effects in the cryptocurrency market cryptocurrencies have gained popularity as new economic investment assets globally in recent years this study examines market reactions to major news events associated with cryptocurrencies abnor

what field experiments have and have not taught us about managing workers this paper reviews the field experimental evidence on firm employee relationships there is strong evidence that output rises in response to financial incentives but more mixed support for worker reciprocity in response to employer generosity non financial approaches such as worker recognition or adding meaning to mundane tasks can also increase output social relations are central to how firms function and have been shown to have an important impact on the design of incentive schemes what we do not know however far exceeds that which we have learned a broad swathe of important topics including recruiting worker promotion and training are virtually untouched thus far by field experiments

diversity and ignorance in electricity supply investment addressing the solution rather than the problem the need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the uk electricity supply sector it is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept why is diversity good what is meant by diversification what is it that must be diversified what trade off should be struck between diversity and other measures of performance the resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading despite this this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach a quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government s implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the uk electricity supply mix this is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio although provisional the results are relevant to the government s forthcoming nuclear review particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy

the liquidity of money in his general theory keynes implicitly defines liquidity as stability of value with respect to changes in the state of long term expectation this contrasts with the usual conception of liquidity as convertibility and with leading post keynesian interpretations the proposed definition explains why keynes places so much emphasis on liquidity while assuming perfect markets for capital goods and writes of the liquidity of land it also sheds new light on the distinction keynes makes between the liquidity of money and the liquidity of organised investment markets

long memory interdependency and inefficiency in bitcoin markets abstract we model cross market bitcoin prices as long memory processes and study dynamic interdependence in a fractionally cointegrated var framework we find long memory in both the individual markets and the system of markets depicting non homogeneous informational inefficiency moreover bitcoin markets are found to be fractionally cointegrated where uncertainty negatively impacts this type of cointegration relationship

bitcoin and the legitimacy crisis of money the virtual currency and payment project bitcoin intends to challenge the current monetary and payment system that finds itself in a legitimacy crisis in the aftermath of the financial market turmoil of 2008 in examining the governance of the bitcoin system i try to assess its potential to create input and output legitimacy as a payment system and as a monetary system in comparison with current practice

money and the commons an investigation of complementary currencies and their ethical implications the commons is a concept increasingly used with the promise of creating new collective wealth in the aftermath of the economic and financial crises finance and money have been criticized and redesigned to serve the collective interest in this article we analyze three types of complementary currency cc systems community currencies inter enterprise currencies and cryptocurrencies we investigate whether these systems can be considered as commons to address this question we use two main theoretical frameworks that are usually separate the new commons in organization studies and the common good in business ethics our findings show that these monetary systems and organizations may be considered as commons under the common good framework since they promote the common interest by creating new communities nevertheless according to the new commons framework only systems relying on collective action and self management can be said to form commons this allows us to suggest two new categories of commons the social commons which fit into both the new commons and the common good frameworks and the commercial commons which fit the common good but not the new commons framework this research advances a new conceptualization of the commons and of the ethical implications of ccs

making sense of a crank case monetary diversity in argentina 1999 2003 based on empirical data this study discusses the introduction acceptance and circulation of two complementary currencies in argentina that do not fit well in the main approaches to the nature of money these two monetary circuits provincial and community currencies were introduced as units of account to denominate the value of debt and circulated as means of payment to overcome monetary stringency during the crisis of 1999 2003 after discussing several theories on the nature of money we reflect on the institutional significance of currency circuits as concurrent and rather stable pairs of trade and money we suggest that several theories of money need to be combined to account for the variety and heterogeneity of daily monetary practices in a broad spectrum of countries

understanding risk of bubbles in cryptocurrencies abstract as cryptocurrencies emerged only recently they are subject to only very limited financial regulations in this paper we study which variables can predict bubbles in the prices of eight major cryptocurrencies focusing on uncertainty measures as predictors we detect multiple bubble periods for all eight cryptocurrencies particularly in 2017 and early 2018 we find that higher volatility trading volume and transactions are positively associated with the presence of bubbles across cryptocurrencies regarding the uncertainty variables the vix index consistently demonstrates negative relationships with bubble occurrence while the epu index mostly exhibits positive associations with bubbles these results may assist authorities in designing appropriate regulations

assessment of sustainability indicators for renewable energy technologies the non combustion based renewable electricity generation technologies were assessed against a range of sustainability indicators and using data obtained from the literature the indicators used to assess each technology were price of generated electricity greenhouse gas emissions during full life cycle of the technology availability of renewable sources efficiency of energy conversion land requirements water consumption and social impacts the cost of electricity greenhouse gas emissions and the efficiency of electricity generation were found to have a very wide range for each technology mainly due to variations in technological options as well as geographical dependence of each renewable energy source the social impacts were assessed qualitatively based on the major individual impacts discussed in literature renewable energy technologies were then ranked against each indicator assuming that indicators have equal importance for sustainable development it was found that wind power is the most sustainable followed by hydropower photovoltaic and then geothermal wind power was identified with the lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions the least water consumption demands and with the most favourable social impacts comparing to other technologies but requires larger land and has high relative capital costs

high gas dependence for power generation in thailand the vulnerability analysis abstract thailand uses 74 of its natural gas supply for power generation and 70 of its power comes from gas based technology high dependence on natural gas in power generation raises concerns about security of electricity supply that could affect competitiveness of thai manufacturing and other industries at the global level the effect of fuel dependence on security of electricity supply has received less emphasis in the literature given this gap this research examines the economic impact of high dependence on natural gas for power generation in thailand by analyzing the effect of changes in fuel prices including fuel oil and natural gas on electricity tariff in thailand at the same time the research quantifies the vulnerability of the thai economy due to high gas dependence in power generation our research shows that for every 10 change in natural gas price electricity tariff in thailand would change by 3 5 in addition we found that the gas bill for power generation consumed between 1 94 and 3 05 of gross domestic product gdp between 2000 and 2004 and in terms of gdp share per unit of energy gas dependence in power generation is almost similar to that of crude oil import dependence we also found that the basic metal industry being an electricity intensive industry is the most affected industry additionally we find that volatility of gas price is the main factor behind the vulnerability concern the research accordingly simulates two mitigation options of the problem namely reducing gas dependence and increasing efficiency of gas fired power plants where the results show that these methods can reduce the vulnerability of the country from high gas dependence in power generation

the transition from barter to fiat money how did it become possible to exchange apparently valueless pieces of paper for goods this paper provides an equilibrium account of the transition between barter and fiat money regimes the explanation relies on the intervention of a self interested government that must be able to promise credibly to limit the issue of money to achieve credibility the government must offset the benefits of seigniorage by internalizing some of the macroeconomic externalities generated by the issue of fiat money the government s patience and the extent of its involvement in the economy are key determinants of whether the transition can be accomplished copyright 1995 by american economic association

a monte carlo based decision support tool for assessing generation portfolios in future carbon constrained electricity industries abstract this paper presents a novel decision support tool for assessing future generation portfolios in an increasingly uncertain electricity industry the tool combines optimal generation mix concepts with monte carlo simulation and portfolio analysis techniques to determine expected overall industry costs associated cost uncertainty and expected co 2 emissions for different generation portfolio mixes the tool can incorporate complex and correlated probability distributions for estimated future fossil fuel costs carbon prices plant investment costs and demand including price elasticity impacts the intent of this tool is to facilitate risk weighted generation investment and associated policy decision making given uncertainties facing the electricity industry applications of this tool are demonstrated through a case study of an electricity industry with coal ccgt and ocgt facing future uncertainties results highlight some significant generation investment challenges including the impacts of uncertain and correlated carbon and fossil fuel prices the role of future demand changes in response to electricity prices and the impact of construction cost uncertainties on capital intensive generation the tool can incorporate virtually any type of input probability distribution and support sophisticated risk assessments of different portfolios including downside economic risks it can also assess portfolios against multi criterion objectives such as greenhouse emissions as well as overall industry costs

the buffer stock notion in monetary economics not the least of harry johnson s contributions to our discipline was the series of survey papers on aspects of monetary economics which he produced during the 1960s and 1970s it is no exaggeration to say that the way in which the literature of monetary economics is organised even now follows the design which johnson first set out in 1962 and built on in the subsequent decade nevertheless the subject has not stood still and one of the more interesting developments of the last few years has involved the introduction of what has been variously described as the disequilibrium money shock absorber or as i prefer to call it the buffer stock notion into monetary economics the development of this line of thought was getting underway before johnson s untimely death much of it indeed under the auspices of his own research programme at the lse even so this did not happen early enough for the relevant ideas to be put in their proper niche by johnson himself and the buffer stock approach is not yet fully integrated into the mainstream of monetary economics much of the relevant literature is empirical concerned with modelling particular aspects of the monetary experience of specific countries hence it is fragmented and contains few papers which attempt a coherent account of just what this approach is and how it relates to other approaches to monetary analysis although essays by goodhart 1982a b and judd and scadding 1982a contain important discussions of these issues to the best of my knowledge only jonson 1976a and knoester 1979a have devoted entire papers solely to this central issue and these are relatively inaccessible and hence less widely known than they deserve to be in this lecture i shall attempt to give a brief account of the essentials of this approach first i shall sketch out its microeconomic background and then i shall discuss those theoretical characteristics which differentiate it from the neo austrian analysis of robert e lucas jr and his associates as well as from the conventional keynesian approach to monetary economics last but by no means least i shall argue that it yields simple theoretical insights into important empirical and policy related issues which are troublesome for alternative approaches in short my tribute to harry

the war for the fare how driver compensation affects bus system performance two systems of bus driver compensation exist in santiago chile most drivers are paid per passenger transported while a second system compensates other drivers with a fixed wage compared with fixed wage drivers per passenger drivers have incentives to engage in la guerra por el boleto the war for the fare in which drivers change their driving patterns to compete for passengers this paper takes advantage of a natural experiment provided by the coexistence of these two compensation schemes on similar routes in the same city using data on intervals between bus arrivals we find that the fixed wage contract leads to more bunching of buses and hence longer average passenger wait times the per passenger drivers are assisted by a fascinating group of independent information intermediaries called sapos who earn their living by standing at bus stops recording arrival times and selling the information to subsequent drivers who drive past this bus bunching phenomenon has frustrated passengers in cities around the world so it is exciting to see evidence that contract design can improve performance in this dimension according to our results a typical bus passenger in santiago waits roughly 10 longer for a bus on a fixed wage route relative to an incentive contract route however the improved wait times on the incentivecontract routes come at a cost the incentives lead drivers to drive noticeably more aggressively causing at least 67 more accidents per kilometer driven most people in santiago blame la guerra por el boleto for the poor service provided by buses our results have implications for the design of incentives in public transportation systems

graph representation of balance sheets from exogenous to endogenous money a graph representation of the financial relations in a given monetary structure is proposed it is argued that the graph of debt liability relations is naturally organized and simplified into a tree structure around banks and a central bank indeed this optimal graph allows to perform payments very easily as it amounts to the suppression of loops introduced by pending payments using this language of graphs to analyze the monetary system we first examine the systems based on commodity money and show their incompatibility with credit after dealing with the role of the state via its ability to spend and raise taxes we discuss the chartalist systems based on pure fiat money which are the current systems we argue that in those cases the treasury and the central bank can be meaningfully consolidated after describing the interactions of various autonomous currencies we argue that fixed exchanged rates can never be maintained and we discuss the controversial role of the imf in international financial relations we finally use graph representations to give our interpretation on open problems such as the monetary aggregates the sectoral financial balances and the endogenous nature of money indeed once appropriately consolidated graphs of financial relations allow to formulate easily unambiguous statements about the monetary arrangements

predicting cryptocurrency defaults we examine all available 146 proof of work based cryptocurrencies that started trading prior to the end of 2014 and track their performance until december 2018 we find that about 60 of those cryp

energy sustainability from analysis of sustainable development indicators a case study in taiwan abstract as taiwan has a dense population and only limited natural resources the government began actively establishing a taiwan s sustainable development indicators tsdi system in 2003 which was developed with reference to the pressure state response psr framework to evaluate the progress towards sustainability energy is a very important factor in leading to sustainable development at the national level however there are only two indicators concerning the energy sustainability in the tsdi system this paper summarizes the current status of energy supply energy consumption carbon dioxide co 2 emissions and renewable energy production since the year 2000 the updated information on the tsdi was also addressed and analyzed to imply the progress towards energy sustainability during 2000 2008 finally the weighted sum method was proposed to make an analysis of energy sustainability from taiwan s renewable energy production showing that this country has experienced a significant progress toward energy sustainability in recent years

crypto currency bubbles an application of the phillips shi yu 2013 methodology on mt gox bitcoin prices the creation of bitcoin heralded the arrival of digital or crypto currency and has been regarded as a phenomenon since its introduction it has experienced a meteoric rise in price and rapid growth accompanied by huge volatility swings and also attracted plenty of controversies which even involved law enforcement agencies hence claims abound that bitcoin has been characterized by bubbles ready to burst any time e g the recent collapse of bitcoin s biggest exchange mt gox this has earned plenty of coverage in the media but surprisingly not in the academic literature we therefore fill this knowledge gap we conduct an econometric investigation of the existence of bubbles in the bitcoin market based on a recently developed technique that is robust in detecting bubbles that of phillips et al 2013a over the period 2010 2014 we detected a number of short lived bubbles most importantly we found three huge bubbles in the latter part of the period 2011 2013 lasting from 66 to 106 days with the

do wage cuts damage work morale evidence from a natural field experiment employment contracts are often incomplete leaving many responsibilities subject to workers discretion high work morale is therefore essential for sustaining voluntary cooperation and high productivity in firms we conducted a field experiment to test whether workers reciprocate wage cuts and raises with low or high work productivity wage cuts had a detrimental and persistent impact on productivity reducing average output by more than 20 percent an equivalent wage increase however did not result in any productivity gains the results from an additional control experiment with high monetary performance incentives demonstrate that workers could still produce substantially more output leaving enough room for positive reactions altogether these results provide evidence consistent with a model of reciprocity as opposed to inequality aversion

assessing the sustainability challenges for electricity industries in asean newly industrialising countries abstract rapid social and economic progress in fast developing countries such that among the countries in the association of southeast asian nations asean have driven substantial growth in electricity consumption in this region whilst this represents significant societal and economic development it has potentially growing adverse environmental impacts this raises a concern on sustainable development in the electricity sector in this region this study evaluates key sustainability challenges in the electricity industries in the five largest energy consumers in asean indonesia thailand malaysia the philippines and vietnam the 3a s energy sustainability objectives accessibility availability and acceptability are used as the sustainability analytical framework this study also draws together a set of associated indicators and criteria within the analytical framework to analyse the status of the electricity industries in these countries the analysis shows that key sustainability challenges in the asean 5 are attributable to satisfying rapid demand growth enhancing security of electricity supply and mitigating the increase in co2 emissions from electricity generation given the promising resource and technical potential in this region renewable energy emerges as a favourable option to address these challenges however increasing the share of renewable energy in electricity generation requires considerable policy support this study suggests that there is an opportunity for the asean countries to strengthen regional collaborations through experience and resource sharing to enhance sustainability in the electricity industries this study also highlights some of the key issues facing the electricity industry and the need for new generation investment decision support tools which can address these issues