mixing and matching prospective financial sector mergers and market valuation abstract which types of mergers are likely to be most productive for banks and other financial firms in the us from a management perspective mixing disparate firms may be difficult but may offer significant gains from diversification the opposite applies to matching similar firms this paper considers life insurance property and casualty insurance securities and commercial firms as potential matches for banks it examines a measure of diversification gains from potential consolidation based on option pricing and a model of the building blocks of the industries based on arbitrage pricing theory the results identify potential diversification gains from virtually all combinations involving banking and insurance which arise because common factors are combined in different ways and because insurance is already well diversified

a seasonal copula mixture for hedging the clean spark spread with wind power futures abstract the recently introduced german wind power futures have brought the opportunity to address the problem of volume risk in wind power generation directly in this paper we study the hedging benefits of these instruments in the context of peak gas fired power plants by employing a strategy that allows trading in the day ahead clean spark spread and wind power futures to facilitate hedging decisions we propose a seasonal copula mixture for the joint behavior of the day ahead clean spark spread and the daily wind index the model describes the data surprisingly well both in terms of the marginals and the dependence structure while being straightforward and easy to implement based on monte carlo simulations from the proposed model the results indicate that significant benefits can be achieved by using wind power futures moreover a comparison study shows that accounting for asymmetry tail dependence and seasonality in the dependence structure is especially important in the context of risk management

efficient banking under interstate branching nationally chartered banks will be allowed to branch across state lines beginning june 1 1997 whether they will depends on their assessment of the profitability of such a delivery system for their services and on their preferences regarding risk and return the authors investigate the probable effect of interstate branching on banks risk return trade off accounting for the endogeneity of deposit volatility if interstate branching improves the risk return trade off banks face then banks that branch across state lines may choose a higher level of risk in return for higher profits the authors find efficiency gains due to geographic diversity coauthors are william lang loretta j mester and choon geol moon copyright 1996 by ohio state university press

access based consumption the case of car sharing access based consumption defined as transactions that can be market mediated but where no transfer of ownership takes place is becoming increasingly popular yet it is not well theorized this study examines the nature of access as it contrasts to ownership and sharing specifically the consumer object consumer consumer and consumer marketer relationships six dimensions are identified to distinguish among the range of access based consumptionscapes temporality anonymity market mediation consumer involvement the type of accessed object and political consumerism access based consumption is examined in the context of car sharing via an interpretive study of zipcar consumers four outcomes of these dimensions in the context of car sharing are identified lack of identification varying significance of use and sign value negative reciprocity resulting in a big brother model of governance and a deterrence of brand community the implications of our findings for understanding the nature of exchange consumption and brand community are discussed

shared atm networks and banking competition abstract in this paper we study the incentives of banks to share their automatic teller machines atms when they are competitors in the market for deposits we construct a stylized model of banking competition which emphasises the distinctive features of atm compatibility we find that in equilibrium either a strict subset of banks share their atms or total incompatibility prevails we also derive the implications for atm compatibility of withdrawal fees interchange bank fees entry and depositor switching costs finally we investigate the normative implications of our model and draw some policy conclusions

complementarities in organizational design and the diffusion of information technologies an empirical analysis we use a specially designed survey on french firms located in haute savoie to provide empirical evidence suggesting that information and communication technologies adoption is not only influenced by the traditional factors of technology diffusion but also by complementarity effects between strategies organization and information technologies the data collected permitted several advances firstly we could study authentic ict while the recent literature has mainly focused on computer capital stocks or automation tools secondly we constructed measures of the determinants put forward by the models of technology diffusion thirdly we studied three kinds of practices organizational and strategic practices technological choices

the value of time spent in price comparison shopping survey and experimental evidence the value that consumers place on time spent in price comparison shopping is central to the economics of information theory and models of consumers search behavior yet few empirical studies have examined consumers subjective value of time building on gary becker s work this article presents two tests of a model of the subjective value of time in an effort to explain consumers subjective value of time while they are price comparison shopping the model introduces perceived enjoyment of shopping as a new explanatory variable the findings reveal that respondents incorporate both wage rates and perceived enjoyment of price comparison shopping into their subjective value of time

the determinants of technology adoption the case of the banking firm using data on the adoption of automatic teller machines by firms in the banking industry this study examines the relationship between the decision to adopt new technology and its determinants since banking firms differ considerably in terms of the competitive environments in which they operate focusing on this one innovation in this industry allows a stronger test of the relationship between market structure and the adoption of new technology than has been previously conducted using a failure time estimation procedure we find that larger banks and banks operating in more concentrated local banking markets register a higher conditional probability of adopting this new technology all else equal we also find that other results are consistent with the underlying model and that the bank s regulatory environment shapes its adoption decision in plausible ways

interpreting consumers a hermeneutical framework for deriving marketing insights from the texts of consumers consumption stories the author describes and illustrates a hermeneutically grounded interpretive framework for deriving marketing relevant insights from the texts of consumer stories and gives an overview of the phi

understanding collaborative consumption an extension of the theory of planned behavior with value based personal norms collaborative consumption is proposed as a potential step beyond unsustainable linear consumption patterns toward more sustainable consumption practices despite mounting interest in the topic little is known about the determinants of this consumer behavior we use an extended theory of planned behavior to examine the relative influence of consumers personal norms and the theory s basic sociopsychological variables attitudes subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on collaborative consumption moreover we use this framework to examine consumers underlying value and belief structure regarding collaborative consumption we measure these aspects for 224 consumers in a survey and then assess their self reported collaborative consumption behavior in a second survey our structural model fits the data well collaborative consumption is more strongly through intentions influenced by personal norms and attitudes than by subjective norms personal norms to consume collaboratively are determined by consumers altruistic biospheric and egoistic value orientations cost savings efficient use of resources and community with others are found to be consumers attitudinal beliefs underlying collaborative consumption we conclude that collaborative consumption can be pin pointed neither as a mere form of economic exchange nor as a primarily normative form of sharing resources instead collaborative consumption is determined by economic egoistic e g cost savings and normative e g altruistic and biospheric value orientations motives implications for collaborative consumption research the theory of planned behavior and practitioners are discussed

the efficiency of self regulated payments systems learning from the suffolk system this paper analyzes the operation of the suffolk system an interbank note clearing network operating throughout new england from the 1820s through the 1850s banks made markets in each other s notes at par which allowed new england to avoid discounting of bank notes in trade privately enforced regu lations prevented free riding in the form of excessive risk taking observers of the suffolk system have been divided some emphasized the stability and effi these arrangements others argued that the arrangements were motivated by rent seeking on the part of boston banks and were primarily coervice and exploitative in the neighboring mid atlantic states regulations limited the potential for developing a regional clearing system centered in new york city on the model of the suffolk system this difference makes it possible to compare the performance of banks across regulatory regimes to judge the relative merits of the sanguine and jaundiced views of the suffolk system evidence supports the sanguine view new england s banks were able to issue more notes and these notes traded at uniform and low discount rates compared to those of other banks an examination of the balance sheets and stock returns of boston and new york city banks indicates that the stock market perceived that bank lending produced less risk for bank debt holders in boston than in new york the benefits of the system extended outside of boston peripheral new england banks displayed high propensities to issue notes and wer able to maintain low specie reserves boston banks did not show high profit rates or high ratios of market to book values of equity thus there is no evidence that boston banks extracted rents from their control of the payments system this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

striving to be green the adoption of total quality environmental management many firms are undertaking environment friendly organizational change by applying the philosophy of total quality management with its emphasis on reducing waste and increasing efficiency their objective is to improve their management of pollution and increase customer satisfaction this article investigates the factors that lead to total quality environmental management tqem by large firms we find that internal considerations stemming from a firm s technical capability size absolute and relative to competing firms extent of operations and volume of past emissions are strongly associated with the tqem adoption decision the first four factors are proxies for the firm s costs and capabilities of adopting tqem while the fifth factor is related to the benefits from increasing efficiency and waste reduction and thus proxies for internally generated demand for tqem the desire to improve a firm s image with customers earning good will with regulators and the anticipation of future regulations do not a

alternative monies and the demand for media of exchange prepaid cards cash cards electronic purse smart cards these are but a few of the elements in the revolution now taking place in monetary systems around the world at that movement s heart is the emergence of a new value transfer system where alternative monies are offered to consumers through the miracle of electronics in some cases the new monies are merely a repackaging of existing media of exchange for example stored value cards that have been traditionally available for single vendors now are being offered for multiple merchant use in other cases technology and its acceptability are being cross sold as with debit cards and the expanded use of atm cards as point of sale vehicles however the banking industry is perhaps most enthusiastic about the emerging technology of smart cards chip in cards that have been making inroads in europe with the expanded capability of a memory chip alternative monies are seen to have the capability of moving to a new plateau of acceptance there are many stories in the business press about the general enthusiasm for these new forms of money for example block 1995 and cutler 1994 herald the new day of electronic money they forecast the demise of both the greenback and of commercial banks that exploit the float derived from its use according to the hyperbole from marketing reps from this side of the financial community currency and demand deposits soon will be endangered species consumer acceptance is alleged to be high and cost efficiency associated with the new technology is expected to be substantial

a framework for analyzing efficiency risks costs and innovations in the payments system the market for payment instruments such as cash checks and electronic funds transfers is one of the largest most important and economically interesting markets in the economic system virtually every economic transaction requires the use of a payment instrument therefore on a value basis the demand for payment instruments equals the demand for all other goods services assets and other financial instruments traded in the economy combined in a monetary economy the buyers and sellers of any commodity must not only agree on the price and quantity to be exchanged but must also concur on the payment method that will be employed in the exchange that is every commodity buyer takes on the role of a payor and every commodity seller takes on the role of a payee and they jointly demand a payment instrument of equal value to the commodities exchanged the size of payments markets is illustrated in table 1 which shows transactions

scale economies cost efficiencies and technological change in federal reserve payments processing the payments system the means of conducting transactions in an economy hume s oil has undergone tremendous change over the centuries commodity money was replaced by fiat usually paper money reducing transportation and storage costs the invention of checks to supplement fiat money further reduced transportation and storage costs lessened the problem of theft and provided a record of transactions most recently the advent of electronic payment instructions has greatly reduced the time and handling costs associated with checks between the great evolutionary leaps forward that gave rise to new forms of payment instructions smaller degrees of gradual evolution occurred within each payment mechanism refining and improving them and reducing the costs associated with their use

preserving competition in electronic home banking heavily based on paper checks consumers write around fifty billion checks per year about twenty billion of these are written at home to pay bills and about fifteen billion of these are mailed at a cost of thirty two cents it is commonly estimated that the total costs of writing mailing and processing a check costs consumers banks and payees about 1 not including the time of the check writer electronic home banking and bill paying has long held the promise of reducing these costs a principal justification for the proposed acquisition of intuit by microsoft was to hasten the arrival of electronic home banking it is my position that the public interest was well served by the actions of the department of justice to prevent the merger the problem of electronic home banking is economic the technology exists to allow much banking activity to take place at home at very low marginal costs the fixed costs are high however and with a low volume of usage average costs are too high for most consumers and payees electronic home banking as generally conceived does not involve cutting edge technology or sophisticated services most planning involves only bill paying and ability access account information on line this usually includes the ability to transfer funds between accounts and perhaps to open cds other functions are further down the road such as the ability to replenish a stored value card or the ability to receive bills electronically it should be noted that while access to account information obviously requires some connection with the bank bill paying is not on line with the bank and in fact does not even need the participation or cooperation of the bank electronic home banking involves several pieces and the combined efforts of several participants

a generalizable scale of propensity to plan the long and the short of planning for time and for money planning has pronounced effects on consumer behavior and intertemporal choice we develop a six item scale measuring individual differences in propensity to plan that can be adapted to different domains and used to compare planning across domains and time horizons adaptations tailored to planning time and money in the short run and long run each show strong evidence of reliability and validity we find that propensity to plan is moderately domain specific scale measures and actual planning measures show that for time people plan much more for the short run than the long run for money short and long run planning differ less time and money adaptations of our scale exhibit sharp differences in nomological correlates short run and long run adaptations differ less domain specific adaptations predict frequency of actual planning in their respective domains a very long run money adaptation predicts fico credit scores low planners thus face materially higher cost of credit

countervailing market responses to corporate co optation and the ideological recruitment of consumption communities from a conventional theoretical standpoint the corporatization of the organic food movement is an example of co optation co optation theory conceptualizes the commercial marketplace as an ideological force that assimilates the symbols and practices of a counterculture into dominant norms our alternative argument is that co optation can generate a countervailing market response that actively promotes the oppositional aspects of a counterculture attenuated by the process of commercial mainstreaming to develop this theoretical argument we analyze community supported agriculture which has emerged in response to the corporate co optation of the organic food movement we conclude by discussing how tacit political ideologies structure consumption communities

demythologizing consumption practices how consumers protect their field dependent identity investments from devaluing marketplace myths marketplace myths are commonly conceptualized as cultural resources that attract consumers to a consumption activity or brand this theoretical orientation is prone to overstating the extent to which consumers identity investments in a field of consumption are motivated by an associated marketplace myth we provide a theoretical corrective to this tendency by investigating consumers who have become vested in a commercially mythologized consumption field through an incremental process of building social connections and cultural capital for these consumers the prevailing marketplace myth is experienced as a trivialization of their aesthetic interests rather than as a source of identity value in response they employ demythologizing practices to insulate their acquired field dependent social and cultural capital from devaluation our findings advance theorizations concerning marketplace myths and consumer identity work and explicate the sociocultural forces that deter consumers from abandoning a consump

spatial dependence in wind and optimal wind power allocation a copula based analysis abstract the investment decision on the placement of wind turbines is neglecting legal formalities mainly driven by the aim to maximize the expected annual energy production of single turbines the result is a concentration of wind farms at locations with high average wind speed while this strategy may be optimal for single investors maximizing their own return on investment the resulting overall allocation of wind turbines may be unfavorable for energy suppliers and the economy because of large fluctuations in the overall wind power output this paper investigates to what extent optimal allocation of wind farms in germany can reduce these fluctuations we analyze stochastic dependencies of wind speed for a large data set of german on and offshore weather stations and find that these dependencies turn out to be highly nonlinear but constant over time using copula theory we determine the value at risk of energy production for given allocation sets of wind farms and derive optimal allocation plans we find that the optimized allocation of wind farms may substantially stabilize the overall wind energy supply on daily as well as hourly frequency

comment on scale economies cost efficiencies and technological change in federal reserve payments processing the david hume quotation at the beginning of this paper advises us that payment systems determine as much as any other market institution how smoothly an economy operates however unlike the other papers presented at this conference it is not hume s oil that interests bauer and ferrier but rather how well the machines of payments processing are themselves lubricated the authors estimate cost functions for each of the three payment services produced and sold by federal reserve banks check processing automated clearing house services ach and wire transfers the fedwire based on the parameters of these cost functions the authors construct measures of scale economies cost efficiency and technological progress their results lead them to three fundamental conclusions a significant scale economies suggest that the production of ach and fedwire services should be consolidated into fewer sites within the federal reserve system b ach and fedwire processing sites have reduced costs over time by exploiting technological advances and c divergent expense levels at individual federal reserve check processing ach and wire transfer sites may indicate inefficient operations at these sites

allocating discretionary time complementarity among activities analysis of complementarity among 50 discretionary activities suggests 1 the greater meaning of partial versus simple correlational measures 2 the validity of seven a priori sets of complements 3 the usefulness of multidimensionally scaled correlations in identifying two key activity dimensions intellectual effort and physical exertion and 4 implications for both marketing and public policy

intraday management of bank reserves the effects of caps and fees on daylight overdrafts the federal reserve system imposes caps and charges fees on the negative intraday balances in banks reserve accounts i e on daylight overdrafts our empirical results suggest that caps alone did little to reduce daylight overdrafts in the aggregate by contrast the 1994 imposition of fees reduced the average daily maximum overdraft on the fedwire system by about 93 billion and the average aggregate overdraft at any time during the day by about 43 billion we also found statistical evidence that higher beginning of day reserve balances lower aggregate dollar values of securities related transfers over fedwire and lower shares of banks assets funded with federal funds and repurchase agreements reduced daylight overdrafts copyright 1996 by ohio state university press

efficient pricing of large value interbank payment systems this paper studies the pricing of large value payment systems and its influence on the way commercial banks route their payments it is shown that the optimal pricing scheme for a public monopoly system involves quantity discounts in the form of a decreasing marginal fee this is also true when the public system competes with a private system characterized by a lower marginal cost however in this case optimal marginal fees in the public system are lower than its marginal cost and fixed fees have to be levied we show that if the central bank wants the public system to be used by a significant proportion of the banks this may be incompatible with full cost recovery we also study the case of competition between several public systems the structure of the optimal tariff depends on the willingness of central banks to allow by pass

technological regimes and innovation in services the case of the italian banking industry abstract in this paper we propose a conceptual model to analyse innovations originating from the diffusion of information technologies in the banking sector we argue that technical change in this industry exhibits a revolutionary character a distinction is made between the mass automation regime focusing mainly on the mechanization of back office procedures in the 1960s and 1970s and the smart automation regime originating from the introduction of distributed data processing and network technologies and centered around the supply of electronic banking services a theoretical model is developed which emphasizes the crucial role played by demand pull variables in stimulating innovative behaviour under the smart automation regime in contrast limited importance is attributed to cumulative and learning by doing effects relating to back office automation at least for banks endowed with sufficient absorptive capacity the theoretical hypotheses are tested through an econometric analysis of the determinants of the innovative behaviour in electronic payment systems of a sample of italian commercial banks

rival precedence and the dynamics of technology adoption an empirical analysis this study employs information on the adoption of automatic teller machines by banking firms to examine the nature of firm reactions to rival precedence in the adoption process using a failure time estimation procedure it is found that the ado ption of this innovation by rivals increases the conditional probabil ity that a decision to adopt will be made the effect of spillovers f rom technology adoption and the interaction of market concentration a nd rival precedence are also investigated finally the study shows w ith an example how the estimation procedure may be used to test the u nderpinnings of diffusion processes copyright 1987 by the review of economic studies limited

payment transactions instruments and systems a survey the payments literature ranges from theoretical general equilibrium models to practical payment issues related to the day to day operation of various national networks for the transfer of money it is an area where economic theory and institutional structure are often closely intertwined and it is currently undergoing significant change shifting from costly paper based systems to technologically advanced electronic payments the extant literature is surveyed here with the aim of integrating the various strands of payment research which have been largely pursued separately in addition we present newly available data to illustrate and investigate a number of underdeveloped areas in this literature 1998 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

time to change what to sow risk preferences and technology adoption decisions of cotton farmers in china this paper examines the role of individual risk attitudes in the decision to adopt a new form of agricultural biotechnology in china i conducted a survey and a field experiment to elicit the risk preferences of chinese farmers who faced the decision of whether to adopt genetically modified bt cotton a decade ago in my analysis i expand the measurement of risk preferences beyond expected utility theory to incorporate prospect theory i find that farmers who are more risk averse or more loss averse adopt bt cotton later farmers who overweight small probabilities adopt bt cotton earlier

reducing taxpayer exposure to loss from innovations in bank risk management sea changes in the technology of bank risk taking demand parallel sea changes in the technologies of regulatory monitoring and loss control federal regulators purport to control taxpayers exposure to loss at federally insured banks by enforcing capital requirements linked to each bank s perceived risk but regulatory systems for monitoring bank risk and bank capital have become outdated these systems are rooted in information communications and managerial technologies of yesteryear regulators current monitoring system focuses on approximately annual on site bank examinations and comprehensive quarterly surveys and selective weekly reports of tangible book values during at least the past twenty years the net economic value of the average bank s intangible book of business has grown faster than the value of its net tangible positions moreover for the most part tangible book values are based on the costs incurred in acquiring a position rather than the current values needed to guide regulatory loss control policies in the modem era acquisition costs take no account of a bank s investment successes and failures on an ongoing basis changes in information processing contracting and transaction execution technologies create an environment of information flows and portfolio response that makes gaps in the time frame for observing bank capital increasingly inappropriate an aggressive bank can concentrate risk in ways that threaten to move the market value of its capital far more substantially from day to day and week to week than ever before nevertheless regulators are collecting information from insured banks with

consumption driven market emergence new market development is well theorized from a firm centered perspective but research has paid scant attention to the emergence of markets from consumption activity the exceptions conceptualize market emergence as a product of consumer struggle against prevailing market logics this study develops a model of consumption driven market emergence in harmony with existing market offerings using ethnographic methods and actor network theory the authors chronicle the emergence of a new market within the motorcycle industry that develops with neither active participation nor interference from mainstream industry players findings reveal a process of multiple translations wherein consumers mobilize human and nonhuman actors to co constitute products practices and infrastructures these drive the growth of interlinked communities of practice which ultimately are translated into a fully functioning market the study highlights the roles of distributed innovation and diffusion embedded entrepreneurship and market catalysts in processes of market change and development

how should central banks determine and control their bank note inventory abstract this paper looks at a relatively unresearched but important area in money and banking namely the provision of currency by the central bank one of the most important functions of central banking is the provision of liquidity to the economy however in fulfilling this function central banks have to be prepared for unexpected money demand shocks as well as production transportation and cost of capital constraints the paper develops a dynamic cost minimizing note inventory model that solves for the central bank s optimal note order size and frequency as part of the modeling exercise a value at risk model is used to solve for an inventory cushion

spatial dependencies of wind power and interrelations with spot price dynamics abstract wind power has seen strong growth over the last decade and increasingly affects electricity spot prices in particular prices are more volatile due to the stochastic nature of wind such that more generation of wind energy yields lower prices therefore it is important to assess the value of wind power at different locations not only for an investor but for the electricity system as a whole in this paper we develop a stochastic simulation model that captures the full spatial dependence structure of wind power by using copulas incorporated into a supply and demand based model for the electricity spot price this model is calibrated with german data we find that the specific location of a turbine i e its spatial dependence with respect to the aggregated wind power in the system is of high relevance for its value many of the locations analyzed show an upper tail dependence that adversely impacts the market value therefore a model that assumes a linear dependence structure would systematically overestimate the market value of wind power in many cases this effect becomes more important for increasing levels of wind power penetration and may render the large scale integration into markets more difficult

toward a theory of status consumption in less industrialized countries how does status consumption operate among the middle classes in less industrialized countries lics those classes that have the spending power to participate effectively in consumer culture globalization research suggests that bourdieu s status consumption model based upon western research does not provide an adequate explanation and what we call the global trickle down model often invoked to explain lic status consumption is even more imprecise we study the status consumption strategies of upper middle class turkish women in order to revise three of bourdieu s most important concepts cultural capital habitus and consumption field to propose a theory specific to the lic context we demonstrate that cultural capital is organized around orthodox practice of the western lifestyle myth that cultural capital is deterritorialized and so accrues through distant textbook like learning rather than via the habitus and that the class faction with lower cultural capital indigenizes the consumption field to sustain a national social hierarchy

play at any cost how cosplayers produce and sustain their ludic communal consumption experiences communal consumption is often described as inherently playful with previous research mainly focusing on successful ludic communal experiences and largely disregarding its potential pitfalls moreover the marketer is usually seen as the primary facilitator of ludic experiences which has marginalized the role of the consumer this article explores how consumers produce and sustain ludic consumption community experiences in the face of growing instrumental costs it assumes a practice theory lens and is based on an ethnographic inquiry into cosplay which is a time and resource intensive form of pop culture masquerade and craft consumption prolonged engagement in the cosplay community leads to growing emotional material temporal and competence related costs which hinder playful experiences consumers practice modularization reinforcement and collaboration to overcome these costs and maintain the important ludic sensations that motivate communal engagements

the social costs of unit banking restrictions abstract many u s commercial banks are prohibited from establishing more than one full service office location in the absence of free entry to the banking industry this constraint may force unit banks to operate with a socially inefficient combination of inputs moreover entry to the industry in unit banking states may be more difficult than in branching states where market entrants need not necessarily acquire a new charter if so existing unit banks could price their output above marginal social cost earning excess profits and imposing allocational inefficiencies this paper demonstrates empirically that unit banking restrictions in the united states impose statistically and economically significant deadweight social costs

are benefits from oil stocks diversification gone new evidence from a dynamic copula and high frequency data abstract oil is perceived as a good diversification tool for stock markets to fully understand this potential we propose a new empirical methodology that combines generalized autoregressive score copula functions with high frequency data and allows us to capture and forecast the conditional time varying joint distribution of the oil stocks pair accurately our realized garch with time varying copula yields statistically better forecasts of the dependence and quantiles of the distribution relative to competing models employing a recently proposed conditional diversification benefits measure that considers higher order moments and nonlinear dependence from tail events we document decreasing benefits from diversification over the past ten years the diversification benefits implied by our empirical model are moreover strongly varied over time these findings have important implications for asset allocation as the benefits of including oil in stock portfolios may not be as large as perceived

optimal clearing arrangements for financial trades abstract clearinghouses support financial trades by keeping records of transactions and by providing liquidity through short term credit that participants clear periodically we study efficient clearing arrangements for exchanges where traders must clear with a clearinghouse and for over the counter otc markets where traders can clear bilaterally when clearing is costly it can be efficient to subsidize otc clearing by charging a higher clearing price for transactions conducted on exchanges the clearinghouse then operates across both markets since clearinghouses offer credit intertemporal incentives are needed to ensure settlement when liquidity costs increase concerns about default lead to a tightening of liquidity provision

timing of technology adoption and product market competition abstract this paper examines how product market competition affects firms timing of adopting a new technology as well as whether the market provides sufficient adoption incentives it demonstrates that adoption dates differ not only among symmetric firms but also among markets with different market features more specifically technology adoption can occur earlier in a market with cournot competition than in a market with bertrand competition it can also occur earlier in a market in which goods are not too close substitutes therefore this paper shows that competition toughness does not always reinforce adoption incentives when goods are sufficiently differentiated adoption occurs later than is socially optimal

selling sharing and everything in between the hybrid economies of collaborative networks recent consumer research has examined contexts where market based exchange gift giving sharing and other modes of exchange occur simultaneously and obey several intersecting logics but consumer research has not conceptualized these so called hybrid economic forms nor explained how these hybrids are shaped and sustained using ethnographic and netnographic data from the collaborative network of geocaching this study explains the emergence of hybrid economies performativity theory is mobilized to demonstrate that the hybrid status of these economies is constantly under threat of destabilization by the struggle between competing performativities of market and nonmarket modes of exchange despite latent tension between competing performativities the hybrid economy is sustained through consumer producer engagements in collaborative consumption and production the creation of zones of indeterminacy and the enactment of tournaments of value that dissipate controversies around hybrid transactions implications are drawn for consumer research on the interplay between market and nonmarket economies

refashioning a field connected consumers and institutional dynamics in markets we investigate the participation of engaged consumers in the fashion market through the lens of institutional theory we develop theoretical insights on the unintended market level changes that ensue when consumers who are avidly interested in a field connect to share ideas with one another we find that consumers take on some of the institutional work previously done primarily by paid actors and introduce new forms of institutional work supportive of the field we show that engaged consumers can precipitate the formation of new categories of actors in the field and the contestation of boundaries between established and emergent actor categories further we propose that new consumer focused institutional logics gain momentum even while consumers support and promote preexisting logics through their practices we compare cases where discontented market actors have brought about market changes with our investigation of one where contented consumers unintentionally precipitated market level dynamics and we show that the accumulation of consumers micro level practices can have pervasive and profound impacts

scale economies scope economies and technical change in federal reserve payment processing in the past decade the u s economy has witnessed a tremendous surge in the usage of electronic payment processing services and an increased importance of the firms that provide these services in this paper we estimate scale economies scope economies and technical change in the federal reserve s provision of payments processing from 1990 to 2000 we find considerable scale economies and evidence of some scope economies for the provision of automated clearinghouse fedwire and book entry services no matter whether we specify a separable quadratic or a translog cost function in addition we find that disembodied technical change also contributed to the overall reduction in costs throughout the 1990s

liquidity creation through efficient m as a viable solution for vulnerable banking systems evidence from a stress test under a panel var methodology according to the cost efficiency liquidity creation hypothesis celch introduced in this paper a rise in a bank s cost efficiency level increases its liquidity creation by employing a novel stress test scenario under a panel var methodology the celch and the direction of causality between liquidity creation and cost efficiency are tested moreover using new measures of liquidity creation berger and bouwman 2009 the question of whether potential bank mergers and acquisitions m as can enhance liquidity creation and generate additional credit channels in the economy is addressed the robustness of potential consolidation scenarios are evaluated and compared through the use of new half life measures chortareas and kapetanios 2013 in line with celch the positive impact of cost efficiency on liquidity creation is shown the empirical evidence further suggests that potential consolidation activity can enhance the flow of credit in the economy bank shocks seem to have the most persistent effect on both liquidity creation and cost efficiency finally doubts are cast on the strategies followed by policy authorities regarding the recent wave of m as in the banking sector