deviations from purchasing power parity in the long run this paper demonstrates that deviations from purchasing power parity reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data since this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper proposes an alternative explanation which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism this paper will demonstrate that deviations from purchasing power parity ppp reveal a remarkable and possibly startling consistency with martingale behavior during both fixed and flexible exchange rate periods for a wide variety of countries and in both monthly and annual data this pattern appears to be much more general than one would expect on the basis of models founded on international commodity arbitrage the paper therefore proposes an alternative explanation which does not presuppose free trade in goods but which instead relies on financial arbitrage in bonds as the underlying mechanism the major implication of the theory and the results is that ppp is as likely to be violated in the long as in the short run as an empirical matter deviations from ppp can be observed for most currencies at any instant see kravis et al 21 stockman 37 and genberg 15 among others these deviations are typically both cumulative and persistent the real exchange rate can remain on either side of parity for lengthy but variable time intervals of a year or more as a consequence the current consensus shared

minimum price variations discrete bid ask spreads and quotation sizes exchange minimum price variation regulations create discrete bid ask spreads if the minimum quotable spread exceeds the spread that otherwise would be quoted spreads will be wide and the number of shares offered at the bid and ask may be large a cross sectional discrete spread model is estimated by using intraday stock quotation spread frequencies the results are used to project 1 16 spread usage frequencies given a 1 16 tick projected changes in quotation sizes and in trade volumes are obtained from regression models for stocks priced under 10 the models predict spreads would decrease 38 percent quotation sizes would decrease 16 percent and daily volume would increase 34 percent article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

in search of the exchange risk premium a six currency test assuming mean variance optimization abstract a number of authors examining deviations of actual rates of currency depreciation from forward discounts have claimed to find evidence of risk premiums if these deviations are indeed partly due to risk premiums rather than being entirely due to expectational errors then they should be systematically related to those variables on which risk premiums are thought to depend finance theory tells us that if investors optimize with respect to mean and variance the risk premium depends in a specific way on 1 the supplies of assets denominated in the various currencies 2 the variance covariance matrix of the rates of return and 3 the coefficient of risk aversion the null hypothesis of this paper is that the coefficient of risk aversion is zero countries assets are perfect substitutes and risk premiums are nonexistent the alternative hypothesis is that rates of return are systematically related to asset supplies by a macroeconomic portfolio balance function the maximum likelihood technique used dominates previous attempts to find such a relationship in that the parameters of the portfolio balance function are constrained to depend on the variance covariance matrix as the finance theory says they should on the other hand the technique also dominates previous applications of the finance theory in that the expected returns are allowed to vary over time as the macroeconomic portfolio balance theory says they should the paper s finding is a statistical inability to reject the null hypothesis for a portfolio of six currencies although this could be due to low power in the test

comparing tax expenditures and direct subsidies the role of legislative committee structure abstract this paper analyzes the impact of legislative committee structure on policy outcomes comparing a tax committee enacting tax expenditures and a decentralized system of specialized committees undertaking direct spending an endogenous commodity taxation framework is combined with models of legislative bargaining and committee voting the main conclusion is that the tax committee structure gives rise to lower subsidy levels under a wide range of circumstances however it is only under a more restrictive set of assumptions that social welfare is higher in the tax committee regime this theoretical analysis is illustrated by two examples of institutional change in congress

a note on exchange rate expectations and nominal interest differentials a test of the fisher hypothesis this note tests the hypothesis that nominal interest differentials between similar assets denominated in different currencies can be explained entirely by the expected change in the exchange rate over the holding period this proposition often called the fisher open hypothesis or the hypothesis of perfect asset substitutability has been a major component of recent theories of exchange rate determination and has important implications for monetary policy 1 the fisher hypothesis differs from the covered interest parity theorem enunciated by keynes 11 while covered interest parity equates the nominal interest differential between financial centers to a known premium or discount on forward foreign exchange and is thus in principle riskless fisher parity involves risk in an essential way the two conditions are equivalent only when forward exchange rates equal expected future spot rates recent theoretical work for example that of grauer litzenberger and stehle 8 kouri 12 and frankel 6 shows that this need not be the case when market participants are risk averse thus while covered interest parity must always hold exactly in an informationally efficient asset market with no transactions costs fisher parity need not nominal interest differentials may reflect risk premia in addition to expected exchange rate movements 2 it should be emphasized at the outset that the tests conducted in this paper are really joint tests of the fisher hypothesis and a weak form of foreign exchange market informational efficiency levich 14 has argued that tests of market efficiency are always joint tests involving some hypothesized structure of normal equilibrium returns below we assume informational efficiency and instead test fisher s hypothesized arbitrage condition that nominal interest differentials equal expected percentage changes in exchange rates

real effects of exchange rate volatility abstract in the presence of exchange rate volatility and internationally differing rates of time preference investment in the stock of domestic capital is shown to proceed beyond or to fall short of the point where the marginal productivity equals the respective rate of time preference if the national rate of time preference is comparatively low high the respective country winds up as a creditor debtor internationally upon an increases in exchange rate volatility domestic capital of a debtor country creditor country decreases increases the long run effect of increased exchange rate volatility on the trade balance cannot be determined unequivocally

does the specialist matter differential execution costs and intersecurity subsidization on the new york stock exchange this article tests for differences in execution costs among specialist firms for new york stock exchange listed securities execution cost differences provide a measure of the relative performance of specialist firms we find a substantial difference in effective spreads and order processing costs across specialist firms controlling for stock characteristics while economically significant the differences in execution costs between specialist firms are much smaller than the cross market differences reported by huang and stoll 1996 within a specialist firm there is a positive relation between order processing costs and trading activity that is consistent with the hypothesis that active stocks subsidize inactive stocks this article investigates whether differential execution costs exist across new york stock exchange nyse specialist firms and among stocks traded by the same specialist firm execution costs are paid by investors when completing a trade and are separate from the commission costs paid to a broker execution costs arise from the bid ask spread and the price impact of an investor s order on the future bid ask quote stoll 1985 shows that a transactionally efficient financial market which minimizes execution costs also minimizes the deviation in transaction prices from the true price of the underlying security evidence of differential execution costs for similar securities can be used to identify high cost and low cost liquidity providers on the nyse furthermore differential execution costs among stocks traded by the same specialist firm provide evidence consistent with a subsidy from actively traded to inactively traded stocks

money bonds and foreign exchange in the theory of finance capital markets provide securities which allow the ownership of productive assets to be allocated among investors according to their willingness to bear risk in exchange for return and independently of their tastes for the productive services provided by the assets this paper uses the theory of finance to study the role of money as a productive asset and the transformation of money into a portfolio asset true to its purpose the capital market provides securities nominal bonds that allow an allocation of the current services of the money supply according to its current productivity and without regard for its future purchasing power risk and an allocation of the future purchasing power risk of the money supply according to the willingness of investors to bear this risk in exchange for return and without regard for investor needs for the future transactions services of money in open

do competing specialists and preferencing dealers affect market quality we empirically demonstrate that the opportunities the boston stock exchange and the cincinnati stock exchange offer members to take the other side of their customers orders through affiliated market makers to internalize orders have little short run effect on posted or effective bid ask spreads this is true despite substantial movement of order flow away from the new york stock exchange when trading under one of these regional stock exchange programs begins these results contrast with the adverse effects of market fragmentation and internalization predicted by some theoretical market microstructure analyses and the popular financial press article published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies in its journal the review of financial studies

farming the tax code the impact of high marginal tax rates on agricultural tax shelters surprisingly little scholarly work has examined the practice of farming the tax code in which accounting losses on agricultural investments are used to shelter other income from taxation economic theory suggests that the amount of investment in agricultural tax shelters is positively related to the marginal tax rate this hypothesis is empirically investigated using a sample of federal individual income tax returns filed for 1983 both the probability of reporting a farm tax loss and the amount of farm losses are increased by a rise in the marginal tax rate especially among upper income taxpayers

a test for cross subsidies in local telephone rates do business customers subsidize residential customers recent regulatory and technological changes suggest that the local telecommunications market may soon present opportunities for profitable entry bypass activity by businesses combined with the generally higher business rates suggests that business service revenues may be subsidizing residential access to the local network before regulators allow wide scale entry into local telecommunications they need to know if local phone service rates exhibit cross subsidies using data supplied by new england telephone this article tests a new set of sufficient conditions for cross subsidization that do not require observations on stand alone cost the results indicate that business service revenues subsidize residential service provision at nearly 65 of the suburban central offices the sufficient conditions for a residential to business cross subsidy fail for all central offices in the sample

price uncertainty and the exchange rate risk premium abstract this paper develops a simple two country portfolio model of the exchange rate risk premium which incorporates price uncertainty in both countries it is shown how the risk premium depends on the world shares of outside assets and wealth as well as on the variance covariance matrix of prices and the exchange rate in particular when purchasing power parity holds the distribution of world wealth has no effect on equilibrium asset prices

income taxes and price variability in storable commodity markets progressive income taxes lead to distortions in economic decisions made across tax years this is particularly important when income is volatile as in the case of agriculture progressive taxes therefore can fundamentally change economic behavior over time this study explores how progressive income taxes influence storage decisions and the markets for storable commodities under a progressive tax system commodity storage tends to be lower in the aggregate and as a consequence price volatility increases these distortions could be eliminated by introducing a flat rate tax or by changing the tax reporting system for farmers

make take structure and market quality evidence from the u s options markets we examine the make take structure which compensates liquidity suppliers and charges liquidity demanders in the options markets where it competes with a traditional structure that uses payments for order flow using the introduction of the make take structure as an event we find that execution costs including fees for liquidity demanders decline after the event for the affected options that the make take structure encourages market makers to improve quoted prices and that brokers change their routing behavior to include fees in the routing decision the decline in execution costs is consistent with the benefits of the increased quote competition from the make take structure prevailing over the fees the structure charges to liquidity demanders this paper was accepted by wei jiang finance

the income tax and nonwage compensation d ramatic changes in the division of labor compensation between wage and nonwage payments have occurred since world war ii voluntary employer contributions to private pension and welfare funds have risen from 1 2 of wage and salary compensation in 1947 to 8 3 in 1979 with half the increase taking place since 1969 see table 1 major changes in the composition of the fringe benefit package have also taken place during this period employer contributions to group health insurance plans have risen from 24 of total fringe benefits in 1947 to 40 o in 1979 if this growth continues group health insurance will replace pension and profit sharing plans as the largest fringe benefit expenditure by employers these trends in the compensation mix have long been noted by researchers and various factors have been offered as explanations including the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits demographic changes such as increased life expectancy and unionization rice 1966 ture 1976 mabry 1973 freeman 1978 however most explanations have not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing and the few results that have been published are both questionable and dated for example rice 1966 estimated that changes in the tax rate structure had little influence on the relative increase in fringe benefits from world war ii to 1963 more recent studies schiller and weiss 1979 1980 have examined a specific fringe benefit the private pension plan for its impact on turnover and its role as an equalizing difference but these studies have not analyzed the determinants of the compensation mix this paper discusses the theoretical determinants of the division of labor compensation between fringe benefits and cash income and empirically estimates their importance it concentrates on the impact of taxation on the compensation mix for several reasons first the assumption that rising tax rates encourage individuals to substitute fringe benefits for cash income underlies estimates of the welfare cost of tax preferences browning 1979 second proposals to fully tax employee fringe benefits under a comprehensive9 income tax have surfaced in recent years nolan 1977 clotfelter 1979 finally current federal tax policy is calling for large tax rate reductions to increase supply incentives unlike the determinants of the compensation mix that change slowly over time such as life expectancy tax rate changes can occur rapidly through legislative action reducing tax rates might enlarge the tax base by increasing the fraction of labor income received as taxable cash wages and salaries section ii outlines the tax treatment of various forms of labor compensation and in section iii other factors thought to influence the choice between wage and nonwage compensation are discussed empirical analyses of the compensation mix are presented in section iv a brief summary and implications of the major findings for the future growth of fringe benefits follow in section v

distributional impacts of the 1986 tax reform act the 1986 tax reform act tra contains the most sweeping changes in tax laws in the last thirty years affecting virtually every sector of the u s economy evaluations of its impacts on agriculture appearing in the farm and nonfarm press have been concerned primarily with commodityand or producer specific issues in this paper we provide a broader perspective on the interand intrasectoral effects of tra first we examine equity versus efficiency effects of tra next we identify major changes wrought by tra and explain briefly how they may alter tax obligations for the farm sector relative to the rest of the economy finally we consider the distributional effects of tra within the agricultural production sector with a focus on differences by size type tenure patterns and debt level

the optimal currency composition of external debt theory and applications to mexico and brazil the changes in exchange rates interest rates and commodity prices during the past decades have had large impacts on developing countries many developing countries have limited access to already incomplete international long term hedging markets thus the question arises whether the currency composition of external debt can be used to minimize exposures to external price risk using a utility maximizing framework this article shows that by choosing the optimal currency composition a country can indeed manage its external exposure the optimal risk minimizing currency composition depends on the relation between export receipts and the costs of borrowings in each currency and on the relations among the costs of borrowings in different currencies a simple methodology can be used to derive the optimal shares of individual currencies and is applied to mexico and brazil the results show that mexico and brazil could have lowered their external exposure to a limited degree by continuously alternating the currency composition of their debts the low correlations between the costs of borrowings and export and import prices make the currency composition of debt a very imperfect hedging tool and it is likely that hedging instruments directly linked to prices are preferable

home asset preference and productivity shocks abstract this paper presents sufficient conditions for the domestic investor consumer to hold in equilibrium a disproportionate share of domestic assets the analysis is carried out in a general equilibrium framework of products and assets markets when the source of the uncertainty is productivity shocks in the nontraded goods industries in the asset markets we allow trade in instruments with a payoff which is not necessarily positively correlated with the price of the consumption good as the instruments considered in the existing literature consequently in our analysis in contrast to the existing literature hedging against price uncertainty is neither necessary nor sufficient for home asset preference

substitution between wage and nonwage benefits you gotta be kidding ollie you re just robbing yourself schuylkill mutual offers a terrific deal on keogh and we could plug you in in fact we advise plugging you in on the corporate end so not a nickel comes out of your personal pocket it comes out of the corporate pocket and there s that much less for uncle to tax these poor saps carrying their own premiums with no company input are living in the dark ages there s nothing shady about rigging it this way we re just using the laws the government has put there they want people to take advantage it all works to up the gross national product you know what i mean by keogh don t you you re looking kind of blank john updike p 296