land acquisition political intervention fragmentation and voice abstract this paper develops a simple dynamic framework of holdout in land acquisition both with and without political intervention where holdout arises because of the landowners inability to manage large sums of money and consequent lack of inter temporal consumption smoothing in case of sale formalized as landowners having sophisticated present biased preferences we then use this framework to analyze two issues of interest political intervention and fragmentation we find that politicization cannot improve efficiency if holdout is landowner induced and may even increase inefficiency if holdout is buyer induced further the extent of politicization depends on whether it involves voice for non members or not turning to the effects of fragmentation we find that while it increases holdout in the absence of politicization in the presence of politicization this effect may however be reversed

oil price shocks and real gdp growth empirical evidence for some oecd countries this study assesses empirically the effects of oil price shocks on the real economic activity of the main industrialized countries multivariate var analysis is carried out using both linear and non linear models the latter category includes three approaches employed in the literature namely the asymmetric scaled and net specifications evidence of a non linear impact of oil prices on real gdp is found in particular oil price increases are found to have an impact on gdp growth of a larger magnitude than that of oil price declines with the latter being statistically insignificant in most cases among oil importing countries oil price increases are found to have a negative impact on economic activity in all cases but japan moreover the effect of oil shocks on gdp growth differs between the two oil exporting countries in the sample with the uk being negatively affected by an oil price increase and norway benefiting from it

on the dynamic effects of oil price shocks a study using industry level data abstract this paper analyzes the effects of oil price shocks on demand and supply in various industries the impulse responses of identified var models indicate that for industries that have a large cost share of oil such as petroleum refinery and industrial chemicals oil price shocks mainly reduce supply in contrast for many other industries with the automobile industry being a particularly important example oil price shocks mainly reduce demand the paper suggests that oil price shocks influence economic activities beyond that explained by direct input cost effects possibly by delaying purchasing decisions of durable goods

do oil price shocks matter evidence for some european countries this paper analyzes the oil price macroeconomy relationship by means of analyzing the impact of oil prices on inflation and industrial production indexes for many european countries using quarterly data for the period 1960 1999 first we test for cointegration allowing for structural breaks among the variables second and in order to account for the possible non linear relationships we use different transformation of oil price data the main results suggest that oil prices have permanent effects on inflation and short run but asymmetric effects on production growth rates furthermore significant differences are found among the responses of the countries to these shocks

oil and the macroeconomy since world war ii all but one of the u s recessions since world war ii have been preceded typically with a lag of around three fourths of a year by a dramatic increase in the price of crude petroleum this does not mean that oil shocks caused these recessions evidence is presented however that even over the period 1948 72 this correlation is statistically significant and nonspurious supporting the proposition that oil shocks were a contributing factor in at least some of the u s recessions prior to 1972 by extension energy price increases may account for much of post opec macroeconomic performance

legal fee restrictions moral hazard and attorney rents abstract when attorney effort is unobservable and certain other simplifying assumptions such as risk neutrality hold it is efficient for an attorney to purchase the rights to a client s legal claim however the american bar association model rules of professional conduct prohibit this arrangement we show that this ethical restriction which is formally equivalent to requiring a minimum fixed fee of zero can create economic rents for attorneys even though they continue to compete along the contingent fee dimension the contingent fee is not bid down to the zero profit level because such a fee does not induce sufficient attorney effort we thereby provide a political economy explanation for these restrictions

a comparison of the effects of exogenous oil supply shocks on output and inflation in the g7 countries a comparison of the effects of exogenous shocks to global crude oil production on seven major industrialized economies suggests a fair degree of similarity in the real growth responses an exogenous oil supply disruption typically causes a temporary reduction in real gdp growth that is concentrated in the second year after the shock inflation responses are more varied the median cpi inflation response peaks after three to four quarters exogenous oil supply disruptions need not generate sustained inflation or stagflation typical responses include a fall in the real wage higher short term interest rates and a depreciating currency with respect to the dollar despite many qualitative similarities there is strong statistical evidence that the responses to exogenous oil supply disruptions differ across g7 countries for suitable subsets of countries homogeneity cannot be ruled out a counterfactual historical exercise suggests that the evolution of cpi inflation in the g7 countries would have been similar overall to the actual path even in the absence of exogenous shocks to oil production consistent with a monetary explanation of the inflation of the 1970s there is no evidence that the 1973 1974 and 2002 2003 oil supply shocks had a substantial impact on real growth in any g7 country whereas the 1978 1979 1980 and 1990 1991 shocks contributed to lower growth in at least some g7 countries jel e31 e32 q43

supply shocks and price adjustment in the world oil market understanding the impacts of transitory oil supply shocks on world oil prices is crucial to the evaluation of the economic impacts of shocks and the design of policy responses to address those impacts this paper integrates short run and long run approaches to oil price determination with particular emphasis on the two price structure of the world oil market with coexisting short term spot prices and long term contract prices even transitory shocks are shown to exhibit persistence effects on long term prices some implications for econometric models of the relationship between spot and contract prices are discussed

cross country differences in the effects of oil shocks abstract we compare the macroeconomic consequences of several types of oil shocks across a set of industrialized countries that are structurally very diverse with respect to the role of oil and other forms of energy in the economy the results crucially depend on the underlying source of the oil price shift when a rise in oil prices is caused by increased global economic activity or a rise in oil specific demand almost all countries experience respectively a temporary increase and transitory decline of real gdp the role of oil and other forms of energy cannot explain the differences in the effects of both shocks across countries in contrast this role is very important to explain asymmetries in the effects of exogenous oil supply shocks whereas net oil and energy importing countries typically face a permanent fall in economic activity the impact is insignificant or even positive in net energy exporting countries in addition countries that improved their net energy position the most over time became less vulnerable to oil supply shocks relative to other countries

price of oil and world inflation and recession new evidence shows that the commonly held assumption that the 1973 74 oil price increase directly affected us and world inflation and subsequent recession is consistent with the empirical data an extended lucas varro real income equation applied to the us united kingdom canada france germany italy japan and the netherlands gives mixed results partly because of price control and decontrol programs simulation experiments on the price control variable using us data finds strong effects further studies can be made when consistent international data is available for the 1979 80 period 18 references 4 figures 3 tables dck

what happened to the oil price macroeconomy relationship abstract strong evidence is found that oil prices no longer granger cause many u s macroeconomic indicator variables in data after 1973 a number of potential explanations are explored that sample stability issues are responsible that oil prices are now endogenous and that linear and symmetric specifications misrepresent the form of the oil price interaction none of these hypotheses are supported by the data the opec price increases do appear to have had significant impacts while the effects of the price declines of the 1980s are smaller and harder to characterize these results have potentially important implications for the large body of research which utilizes oil prices as an instrumental or explanatory variable

oil and the macroeconomy since the 1970s economists have long been intrigued by empirical evidence that suggests that oil price shocks may be closely related to macroeconomic performance this interest dates back to the 1970s the 1970s were a period of growing dependence on imported oil unprecedented disruptions in the global oil market and poor macroeconomic performance in the united states thus it was natural to suspect a causal relationship from oil prices to u s macroeconomic aggregates since then a large body of work has accumulated that purports to establish this link on theoretical grounds and to provide empirical evidence in its support we do not attempt a comprehensive survey of this literature but rather provide an idiosyncratic synthesis of what we view as the key issues in this debate and the insights gained over the last 30 years the timing seems right for such an account although the experience of the 1970s continues to play an important role in discussions of the link between oil and the macroeconomy there have been a number of new oil price shocks since the 1970s notably the 1986 collapse of oil prices and the 2000 boom in oil prices as well as the oil price increases associated with the 1990 1991 gulf war and the 2003 iraq war given this richer case history we are arguably in a better position than two decades ago to distinguish the idiosyncratic features of each oil crisis from the systematic effects increases in oil prices have been held responsible for recessions periods of excessive inflation reduced productivity and lower economic growth in this paper we review the arguments supporting such views first we highlight some of the conceptual difficulties in assigning a central role to oil price shocks in explaining

the impact of oil price shocks evidence from the industries of six oecd countries most of the studies about the macroeconomic consequences of oil price shocks have been focused on us aggregate data in contrast to these studies this paper empirically assesses the dynamic effect of oil price shocks on the output of the main manufacturing industries in six oecd countries the pattern of responses to an oil price shock by industrial output is diverse across the four european monetary union emu countries under consideration france germany italy and spain but broadly similar in the uk and the us moreover evidence on cross industry heterogeneity of oil shock effects within the emu countries is also reported

oil price shocks stock market economic activity and employment in greece abstract using a multivariate vector autoregression var approach this paper attempts to shed light into the dynamic relationship among oil prices real stock prices interest rates real economic activity and employment for greece the empirical evidence suggests that oil price changes affect real economic activity and employment oil prices are important in explaining stock price movements stock returns do not lead to changes in real activity and employment

no win no fee some economics of contingent legal fees mark up in different types of case is to be issued after consultation with professional bodies american style share contracts whereby the lawyer is paid a proportion of the award if the case is won and nothing if it is lost will continue to be unenforceable at law and prohibited by the professional bodies the introduction of contingency fees in england and wales has been discussed in a number of official and semi official reports without any consensus emerging 3 we use a formal model of the litigation process to analyse the implications of contingent fees under both english and united states cost shifting rules in the model potential defendants can take care to avoid accidents which impose losses on potential plaintiffs if an accident occurs the defendant is sued by the plaintiff and makes a settlement offer if the plaintiff rejects the offer the case proceeds to trial plaintiffs who win at trial are awarded damages and under english rules costs against the defendant lawyer client contracts can be evaluated by the extent to which they a compensate plaintiffs after an accident by making it easy to sue and obtain redress b induce settlements rather than costly trials and c provide

oil prices and economic activity an asymmetric cointegration approach the aim of this paper is to study the long term relationship between oil prices and economic activity proxied by gdp to account for asymmetries existing in the links between the two variables we propose an approach based on asymmetric cointegration our empirical analysis concerns the u s economy but also the g7 europe and euro area economies results indicate that while standard cointegration is rejected there is evidence for asymmetric cointegration between oil prices and gdp

world crude oil and natural gas a demand and supply model abstract this paper examines world markets for crude oil and natural gas over the period 1918 1999 it analyzes the time series properties of output and prices and estimates demand and supply elasticities during 1918 1973 and 1973 1999 oil and gas prices were stable during the first period they became volatile afterwards reflecting deep changes in the market structure following the oil shock in 1973 demand price elasticities were too low however demand income elasticities were high supply price elasticities were also too low the elasticity estimates help to explain the market power of the oil producers and price volatility in response to shocks and corroborate elasticity estimates in energy studies

dispute rates and contingency fees an analysis from the signaling model 1 introductioncontingency fee contracts under which the plaintiff pays her lawyer a percentage of the judgment if she wins at trial and nothing if she loses are very common in the united states but are banned or severely restricted in many other countries 1 their use in the united states generates great controversy and while their use is restricted in some states further calls for restrictions on contingency fee contracts are often heard 2 although contingency fee contracts are quite simple their effects on the litigation process are complex and wide ranging previous studies have considered the effect of contingency fees on the frequency of litigation danzon 1983 miceli and segerson 1991 and nuisance suits miceli 1993 1994 and on various aspects of the lawyer client relationship miller 1987 dana and spier 1993 rubinfeld and scotchmer 1993 watts 1994 hay 1996 1997 in this article we focus on the effects of contingency fees on the selection of disputes for trial and the overall dispute rate in the signaling model of reinganum and wilde 1986 3 along with bebchuk 1984 this is one of the two canonical models of pretrial settlement in addition since the solution to a model with two sided informational asymmetries has a strong signaling element daughety and reinganum 1994 it is particularly important to understand how contingency fees affect dispute rates in the signaling model as in the standard literature on pretrial settlement e g bebchuk 1984 reinganum and wilde 1986 we assume that the plaintiff controls all aspects of the case 4 in the reinganum and wilde model an informed plaintiff makes a take it or leave it offer to an uninformed defendant who rejects these offers with some probability in equilibrium in order to conduct a complete analysis of the contingency fee in a signaling model we also consider the case in which an informed defendant makes a single offer to the uninformed plaintiff reinganum and wilde first develop a signaling model in which the plaintiff s lawyer is paid via a fixed fee and then go on to present pp 562 3 a very general solution to the model in the presence of a contingency contract we use the general framework of reinganum and wilde to focus on specific forms for the contingent fee contracts our contribution lies not in the derivations of the model solutions as these follow from the reinganum and wilde framework rather closely instead our contribution lies in the analysis of how these specific contingency fee contracts affect pretrial settlement patterns we analyze the effects both on overall dispute rates and on the selection of disputes for litigation in section 2 we will further note the relationship between our work and the earlier analysis provided by reinganum and wilde we examine two types of contracts in this article a bifurcated contingency fee and a unitary contingency fee under a unitary contract the same contingency payment is made by the client to her lawyer regardless of whether there is an out of court settlement or a victory at trial 5 under a bifurcated fee the contingency percentage at trial is generally higher than the percentage for cases that settle 6 while unitary fees appear to be more common a significant use of bifurcated fees has been noted in the literature 7 in a model with attorney moral hazard hay 1997 notes that bifurcated fees are generally optimal from the perspective of the plaintiff on the other hand bebchuk and guzman 1996 argue that a unitary fee can lead to a larger net settlement for the plaintiff since both types of contracts appear to be relevant empirically we examine both in this article one robust finding from our article is that unitary fees lead to an unambiguous increase in the incidence of trial relative to both the fixed fee contract and the bifurcated contingency fee contract

oil and the macroeconomy when prices go up and down an extension of hamilton s results in an important paper hamilton 1983 demonstrated a strong correlation between oil price changes and gross national product growth in u s data however his study pertained to a period in which all the large oil price movements were upward and thus it left unanswered the question whether the correlation persists in periods of price decline moreover the price variable he used was somewhat distorted by price controls in the 1970s this note investigates whether hamilton s results continue to hold when the sample is extended to include the recent oil market collapse and the oil price variable is corrected for the effects of price controls particular attention is given to the possibility of asymmetric responses to oil price increases and decreases as suggested in the structural employment literature loungani 1986 davis 1987 hamilton 1988 like hamilton i based my investigation on the gnp equation in sims s 1 980b six variable quarterly vector autoregressive model

expectations learning and the changing relationship between oil prices and the macroeconomy this paper estimates a structural general equilibrium model to investigate the changing relationship between the oil price and macroeconomic variables the oil price through the role of oil in production and consumption affects aggregate demand and supply in the model the assumption of rational expectations is relaxed in favor of learning oil prices therefore affect the economy through an additional channel i e through their effect on the formation of agents beliefs the estimated learning dynamics indicates that economic agents perceptions about the effects of oil prices on the economy have changed over time oil prices were perceived to have large effects on output and inflation in the 1970s but only milder effects after the mid 1980s since expectations play a large role in the determination of output and inflation the effects of oil price increases on expectations can magnify the response of macroeconomic variables to oil price shocks in the estimated model in fact the implied responses of output and inflation to oil price shocks were much more pronounced in the 1970s than in 2008 therefore through the time variation in the impact of oil prices on beliefs the paper can successfully explain the observed weakening of the effects of oil price shocks on real activity and inflation