financial intermediary coalitions abstract in this article an environment in which the investment opportunities of agents are private information is studied and it is shown that financial intermediaries arise endogenously within that environment it is established that financial intermediaries are part of an efficient arrangement in the sense that they are needed to support the authors private information core allocations these intermediaries which are coalitions of agents exhibit the following characteristics in equilibrium they borrow from and lend to large groups of agents they produce information about investment projects and they issue claims that have different state contingent payoffs than claims issued by ultimate borrowers

determining the optimal carbon tax rate based on data envelopment analysis carbon tax policy is widely used to control greenhouse gases and how to determine a suitable carbon tax rate is very important for policy makers considering the trade off between environmental protection and economic development in an industry regulated by carbon tax policy we consider two competing firms who sell ordinary products and green products respectively in order to promote the firm who sells ordinary product to reduce carbon emissions the government of china imposes carbon tax on the ordinary products for the government three objectives are considered when it makes carbon tax policy they are increasing the government revenue reducing the government expenditure and decreasing the carbon emissions for the firms it is important to explore their pricing strategies taken into account of the government tax policy to find an optimal carbon tax rate and to achieve the three objectives simultaneously we consider this as a multiple criteria decision making problem hence we propose to use a centralized data envelopment analysis dea approach to solve it we find that when one firm produces ordinary products and the other produces green products the government may set a high tax rate while when both firms sell ordinary products the optimal tax policy for each firm is different and the government may impose a higher tax rate for one firm and a lower tax rate for the other firm

private information deposit interest rates and the stability of the banking system abstract the regulation of deposit interest rates has received little support from economists the same is true for the original rationale for such regulation that bank competition for deposits generates inherent instability in the banking system this paper develops an adverse selection model of banking in which this rationale is correct moreover in this model instability in the banking system can arise despite the presence of a lender of last resort and despite the absence of any need for deposit insurance however in the world described the regulation of deposit interest rates is shown to be an appropriate response to instability in the banking system finally it is argued that adverse selection models of deposit interest rate determination can confront a number of observed phenomena that are not readily explained in other contexts

environmental tax on products and services based on their carbon footprint a case study of the pulp and paper sector the main aim of this work is to define an environmental tax on products based on their carbon footprint we examine the relevance of life cycle analysis lca and environmentally extended input output analysis eio as methodological tools for identifying the emission intensities on which the tax is based the price effects of the tax and the policy implications of considering non co2 greenhouse gases ghg are also analyzed the results from the case study on pulp production show that the environmental tax rate based on lca 1 8 is higher than both eio approaches 0 8 and 1 4 for product and industry respectively but they are of the same order of magnitude although lca is more product specific and provides a more detailed analysis we recommend eio as a more relevant approach to applying an economy wide environmental tax if an environmental tax were applied to non co2 ghg instead to co2 alone the tax would greatly affects sectors such as agriculture mining of coal extraction of peat and food therefore it is worthwhile for policy makers to pay attention to the implications of considering either a co2 tax or a global ghg emissions tax in order to make their policy measures effective and meaningful

on avoiding bank runs abstract can bank runs be avoided and should they be avoided i analyze a banking environment where bank runs can occur as a result of negative signals about the bank s investments in this environment banks can make sure that runs do not occur by designing the deposit contract appropriately i show that there are conditions under which it is profit maximizing for the bank to avoid runs and others under which occasional runs are part of optimal bank behavior i also compare the banking arrangement to an arrangement based on trading in equity

pricing free bank notes abstract during the pre civil war period us banks issued distinct private monies called bank notes a bank note is a perpetual risky non interest bearing debt claim with the right to redeem on demand at par in specie this paper investigates the pricing of this private money taking into account the enormous changes in technology during the period namely the introduction and rapid diffusion of the railroad a contingent claims pricing model for bank notes is proposed and tested using monthly bank note prices for all banks in north america together with indices of the durations and costs of trips back to issuing banks constructed from pre civil war travelers guides evidence is produced that market participants properly priced the risks inherent in these securities suggesting that wildcat banking was not common because of market discipline

misintermediation and macroeconomic fluctuations abstract individuals plan consumption and production for different point in the future using interest rates of various maturities as a guide however the financial intermediaries individuals work through traditionally do not match the maturity structure of their assets and liabilities as a result aggregate production plans and aggregate consumption plans for each period in the future need not coincide the resulting discrepancy will eventually appear as a recession or boom involving an unanticipated change in interest rates and production inside the original intertemporal production possibilities frontier maturity transformation is therefore not an essential function of financial intermediation but rather a mis function one which we call misintermediation

models of banking instability a partial review of the literature abstract this paper critically examines the theoretical literature on banking instability that has followed diamond and dybvig 1983 it explores the extent to which it a explains banking instability within a theoretical context in which financial intermediaries improve on unintermediated markets and b justifies government involvement in the financial intermediation industry it suggests that the literature has yet to provide a satisfactory theoretical basis for banking instability as such since the intermediaries which arise from it are peculiar mutual funds that bear little resemblance to real world banks in addition the paper challenges the widespread belief that this literature provides a sound foundation for government involvement in the industry it suggests that arguments for government intervention are open to objection on various grounds the most important one being that they are inconsistent with the existence of properly motivated financial intermediation in these models

introducing detailed land based mitigation measures into a computable general equilibrium model abstract we propose a new climate change mitigation assessment method focusing on agriculture forestry and land use change sectors by coupling the computable general equilibrium cge model with a bottom up type technology model the cge model covers the entire economic market but includes a rough description of mitigation measures whereas the bottom up type technology model takes into account abatement cost and mitigation effects of individual mitigation measures but only focuses on a few sectors the coupled framework enables us to connect relevant conditions and to complement the shortcomings of each model as a test we applied our method to indonesia which has set a national greenhouse gas emissions reduction target for 2020 a large proportion of indonesia s greenhouse gas emissions are from the land use sector we assessed the differences in modeling behaviors between the cge models with and without coupling the bottom up type model the two primary findings were 1 consumption loss estimated by the coupled cge 1 2 was larger than the loss estimated by the uncoupled model 0 5 because the emission reduction estimated by the bottom up model was less than the standalone cge s estimate and 2 consumption loss caused by achieving the reduction target by 2020 in indonesia strongly depends on the assumption of mitigation costs and available land area for the emission reduction measures

money is an experience good competition and trust in the private provision of money the interplay between competition and trust as efficiency enhancing mechanisms in the private provision of money is studied with commitment trust is automatically achieved and competition ensures efficiency without commitment competition plays no role trust does play a role but requires a bound on efficiency stationary inflation must be non negative and therefore the friedman rule cannot be achieved the quality of money can be observed only after its purchasing capacity is realized in this sense money is an experience good

the expectations management approach to stabilization in argentina during 1976 1982 abstract the main goals of the economic authorities in argentina during 1976 1982 were to open the economy to foreign trade and to reduce inflation the stabilization plan relied first on the control of money and wages later on a preannounced schedule of a declining future exchange rate actions that were supposed to be accompanied by a fiscal policy to reduce the public sector deficit the stabilization plan was abandoned in the first quarter of 1981 for two reasons an important financial crisis during the second quarter of 1980 and a deterioration of fiscal discipline that could no longer assure coherence between the deficit and the preannouncement schedule the paper also argues that the political situation in argentina undermined the credibility of the reforms and particularly the stabilization attempts with the abandonment of the stabilization schedule new commercial and exchange rate measures were gradually introduced reversing the policy of opening the economy to foreign trade the financial reform was reversed in 1982 with the virtual nationalization of deposits the experience of argentina suggests that capital inflows responding to interest rate arbitrage play a fundamental role in the short run dynamics of real exchange rates they can promote the adjustment or they can precipitate a run on the foreign exchange market the lesson is that a stabilization plan based on the preannouncement of future exchange rates is highly risky for an economy like argentina s

the economic and environmental impact of a carbon tax for scotland a computable general equilibrium analysis using a disaggregated energy economy environmental model we investigate the economic and environmental impact of a scottish specific carbon tax under three alternative assumptions about the use of the revenue raised by the tax revenues raised are not recycled within scotland revenues are used to increase general government expenditure or to reduce scottish income tax we find that by imposing a tax of 50 per tonne of co2 the 37 co2 reduction target is met with a very rapid adjustment in all three cases if the model incorporates forward looking behaviour however the adjustment is much slower if agents are myopic in addition the results of the model suggest that a carbon tax might simultaneously stimulate economic activity whilst reducing emissions and thus secure a double dividend but only for the case in which the revenue is recycled through income tax

the impact of the euro on risk exposure of the world s major banking industries abstract in this paper we examine if the introduction of the euro impacted the risk exposures risk premiums and hence the cost of equity of the banking industry of 11 eurozone countries five non eurozone european countries and three non european countries using a multi factor asset pricing model that allows time variation in the risk exposures we find a statistically significant and economically large decline in the cost of equity of the banking industry across the three groups of countries following the introduction of the euro though we find an increase in the market and currency exposures after the euro consistent with increased competition among banks the fall in the cost of equity arises from an economically large decline in the currency premium as expected the eurozone banking industry experienced the largest decrease our results are inconsistent with the argument that increased banking competition arising from the legislative changes accompanying the introduction of the euro would result in an increase in the overall risk premium of the banking sector

what are the determinants of investment in environmental r d to face the challenges posed by climate change environmental rd yet investment in environmental r d remains below the social optimum the aim of this paper is to analyse the determinants of investment in environmental innovation and to detect the differences if any with the determinants of investment in general innovation in addition this paper examines the relationship between environmental innovation r d expenditure and a range of policy instruments including environmental regulation and other policy measures including r d subsidies and environmental taxes the empirical analysis is carried out for 22 manufacturing sectors in spain for the period 2008 2013 to overcome problems of data availability we construct a comprehensive database from different surveys the main implications from our results are 1 managerial strategy appears as a relevant driver of environmental r d investments 2 the establishment of a policy mix between environmental energy and technological regulatory measures is recommended 3 the promotion of self regulation through actions that encourage companies to follow a policy that affects their energy efficiency and is environmentally friendly

ecosystem service value assessment for constructed wetlands a case study in hangzhou china abstract based on a comprehensive analysis of various classifications of natural resource values we summarized an ecological economic value system of constructed wetland cw ecosystems for treating eutrophic water using the cw located at the hangzhou botanical garden as an example the contingent valuation method cvm and shadow project approach spa were applied to estimate the economic values of cw system ecosystem services the cvm estimated a value of 800 000 yuan yuan chinese currency 7 6 yuan 1 usd as of august 2007 as the total economic value of the cw in a twenty year period meanwhile the spa calculated a value of 23 04 million yuan as the total economic value of the cw in a twenty year period it is determined that compared to the cvm the spa provides a more approximate value of the true monetary value of the hangzhou botanical garden cw this study could fill the gap of knowledge and provide a benchmark when evaluating constructed ecosystem services and help policy makers to promote the development of constructed wetlands in china

carbon footprint taxes we analyze whether a carbon consumption tax is logistically feasible we consider a carbon footprint tax cft which would be modeled after a credit method value added tax the basis for the tax would be a product s carbon footprint which includes all of the emissions released during production of the good and its inputs as well as any greenhouse gases latent in the product our analysis suggests that a pure cft requiring the calculation of the carbon footprint of every individual product may be prohibitively costly however a hybrid cft seems economically feasible the hybrid cft would give firms the option to either calculate the carbon footprint of their outputs and have their products taxed based on those footprints or use product class specific default carbon footprints as the tax basis thereby saving on calculation costs because the cft would be levied on all goods consumed domestically the cft would keep domestic firms on an even footing with those producing in countries without active climate policy protecting competitiveness and reducing leakage

uncertain liquidity and interbank contracting we study a version of the diamond and dybvig journal of political economy 1983 91 401 419 model where banks would like to obtain insurance against shocks on returns on liquid assets through an interbank borrowing and lending program we show that if investments in liquid assets and their realized returns are private information to individual banks the first best allocation is not incentive compatible we then characterize the second best interbank contract

free bank failures risky bonds versus undiversified portfolios almost 30 of the 872 banks established under the free banking system 1837 62 are considered failures unable to reimburse noteholders for the full value of their bank notes upon closure lacking sufficient data economists have focused on one of two general failure explanations poor regulation design or undiversified bank portfolios i test both explanations within hazard functions using warren weber s annual balance sheet data for almost every antebellum bank my results suggest that free banking s bond secured note issue was the underlying problem but individual banks could have avoided failure by diversifying their assets with loans and controlling their circulation

sources of panics evidence from the weekly data abstract we use weekly data 1867 1933 to investigate the sources of banking and financial panics we find that while a panic s exact starting date is unpredictable one can identify environments conducive to panics a lack of liquidity in financial markets seems to be a key source results also reveal the effectiveness of the aldrich vreeland act inelastizing the money supply and shortening the panic of 1914 and suggest that the panic of 1933 may have been caused by a speculative attack on the gold backed us dollar via the banks as opposed to a run on the banks directly

distinguishing panics and information based bank runs welfare and policy implications in this paper we contrast panics and information based bank runs in an effort to provide a robust and empirically plausible model of how bank runs are triggered the model of information based runs is characterized by two sided asymmetric information the bank cannot observe the true liquidity needs of the depositors while depositors are asymmetrically informed about bank asset quality we also examine the relative degrees of risk sharing provided by bank deposit contracts and traded equity contracts we show that the choice of deposit or equity depends on the attributes of and information about the underlying investment returns

carbon footprint and responsiveness trade offs in supply chain network design concern related to sustainability and greenhouse gases has grown among citizens as well as firms which are increasingly committing to carbon emission reduction targets however firms emissions come from direct and indirect sources and from the different stages of their supply chain therefore comprehensive supply chain approaches are essential to ensure the cost effectiveness of carbon management strategies these approaches should capture operational and environmental trade offs arising from the interaction between different supply chain processes such as procurement manufacturing transport and inventory management considering all these processes we propose a model for supply chain network design that takes demand uncertainty into account and includes decisions on supply chain responsiveness under different carbon policies caps on supply chain carbon footprints caps on market carbon footprints and carbon taxes our model supports the analysis of the effect of different policies on costs and optimal network configuration and allows us to distinguish between different product types functional or innovative products with detailed numerical examples we illustrate the type of analysis and managerial insights that can be derived with our model which include the assessment of supply chains potential for carbon abatement the study of the effect of different carbon policies on supply chain costs and network design the analysis of the impact of various product characteristics the test of an alternative profit maximisation model and the determination of the value of a supply chain carbon tax that should induce specific levels of carbon abatement

meetings with costly participation comment in a recent paper osborne rosenthal and turner 2000 investigate a model of meetings with costly participation their main result is that the equilibrium number of participants is small and their positions are extreme in particular when the policy space is one dimensional and the policy outcome is the median of participants positions they conclude that the number of attendees is even the proof is flawed we construct an example with an odd number of attendees oddness of the number of participants has a dramatic consequence on how equilibria look like this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

ecological deficit tax a tax design and simulation of compensation for ecosystem service value based on ecological footprint in china abstract the expansion of resource tax to the occupation of natural ecological space is an important part of china s tax reform this paper quantifies the occupation of natural ecological space based on the demand for energy water and agriculture resources in terms of an ecological footprint and creatively convert the carbon emissions from energy consumption to occupation of carbon sinks such as woodlands and grasslands to obtain the ecological deficits in various regions of china based on the evaluation of the ecological service value the paper determines the correspondence between consumption projects land types and ecological functions realized the accounting of the economic value of the national ecological deficit as the sum of the regional deficits based on this the ecological deficit is used as an unpaid input factor in the construction of a green social accounting matrix table and a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model is used to analyze the effects of a tax policy on the compensation for the ecological deficit value the simulation results show that the double dividend hypothesis exists in the primary and tertiary industries and employment in the secondary industry that with a high value added labor decreased resulting in decreases in both the labor income of residents and their proportion of the national income the growth rate of gdp decreases in the short term and then gradually increases capital appreciation and net exports contribute greatly to economic growth based on the positive role of taxation schemes in reducing ecological deficits and their negative impacts on economic growth and the income distribution this paper suggests that with the improvement of big data on ecological occupation an ecological deficit tax can be introduced to target the energy sector which has a large ecological footprint in addition household income should be protected through tax cuts transfer payments and earmarked funds among other means to promote economic growth and protect the environment

currency elasticity and banking panics theory and evidence existing models of banking panics contain no role for monetary factors and fail to explain why some banking systems experienced panics while others did not a monetary model is constructed where seasonal variations in the demand for liquidity and credit play a critical role in generating banking panics these panics occur when there are restrictions on the issue of currency in private banks but they do not occur if banks are unrestricted empirical evidence from canada and the united states for the period 1880 1910 is largely consistent with the predictions of the model

imperfect competition risk taking and regulation in banking abstract we asses the welfare implications of banking competition under various deposit insurance regimes in a model of imperfect competition with social failure costs and where banks are subject to limited liability we study the links between competition for deposits and risk taking incentives and conclude that the welfare performance of the market and the appropriateness of alternative regulatory measures depend on the degree of rivalry and the deposit insurance regime specifically when competition is intense and the social failure costs high deposit rates are excessive both in a free market and with risk based insurance if insurance premiums are insensitive to risk then the same is true even if there is no social cost of failure we find also that in an uninsured market with nonobservable portfolio risk or with flat premium deposit insurance deposit regulation rate regulation or deposit limits and direct asset restrictions are complementary tools to improve welfare in an uninsured market with observable portfolio risk or with risk based insurance deposit regulation may be a sufficient instrument to improve welfare

the suppression of state banknotes a reconsideration george selgin it is generally believed that congress in imposing a prohibitive 10 tax on state banknotes in 1865 made the public better off by doing away with inferior brands of currency while simultaneously helping finance the civil war by stimulating bond sales to national banks in truth the tax served neither purpose the true purpose of the 10 tax was not to enhance bond sales or to improve the quality of the currency but to offset the inflationary effects of greenbacks and national banknotes in the long run the public might have been better off had state banks retained their right to issue currency jel g21 n21 let us have a bank currency that will be recognized in the next town a currency that will be recognized in new york philadelphia boston new orleans chicago or any other part of the united states representative john f farnsworth illinois april 28 1864 congressional globe 38th congress 1st session 1934 i f the national banks with the great advantages which they enjoy cannot compete successfully with the state banks it simply shows that the latter subserve better the interests of the business community and should not be destroyed representative francis kernan new york february 16 1865 congressional globe 38th congress 2d session 833 i introduction during the civil war a 10 tax was placed on any issuance of notes of state chartered or incorporated banks deliberately forcing state banks out of the paper currency business and making the regulation and issuance of currency a prerogative of the federal government and of federally chartered national banks this paper reexamines the congressional decision to suppress state banknotes american monetary historians have conventionally viewed the decision as reflecting 1 the public s intolerable disgust with an unregulated currency hammond 1957 11 compare dunbar 1922 220 and 2 the government s desire to boost the demand for national bank charters so as to expand the market for its debt e g hughes and cain 1998 373 74 dowd 1992 230 i plan to argue that neither view accounts adequately for the 10 tax the first view in particular begs important questions that have gone unaddressed if state banknotes were clearly inferior to national banknotes why was a prohibitive tax needed to drive them out of circulation just how were consumers supposed to benefit from having their choices restricted i explore several responses to these questions and ultimately conclude that consumers considered some state banknotes to be just as desirable as their national bank counterparts i argue that the 10 tax served not to overcome any banknote market failure but to force the withdrawal of relatively high quality state banknotes i then proceed to show that the tax was not needed to secure adequate bond sales to national banks proponents of the tax were striving not to increase the number of applications for national bank charters but to limit growth in the aggregate money stock i conclude by suggesting that because state banks of issue could have accommodated market demands that national banks failed to satisfy consumers might have been better served had state banknotes been allowed to survive ii the chase plan when the first shots of the american civil war were fired at fort sumter the paper currency of the united states consisted of over 200 million in banknotes issued by nearly 1 500 state chartered banks the quality of these banknotes varied according to their issuers management and regulatory environment 1 some banknotes circulated at par only near their source and at fluctuating discounts elsewhere so that persons carrying notes from state to state risked incurring currency exchange losses of the sort borne by international travelers today a few were subject to especially heavy discounts or were refused altogether because their issuers solvency was in question

friedman versus hayek on private money review essay abstract few areas of economic activity can claim as long and unanimous a record of agreement on the appropriateness of governmental intervention as the supply of money benjamin klein 1974 p 423

economics and environmental implications of fuel efficiency improvement in malaysia a computable general equilibrium approach the continued increase in urbanization and vehicle ownership poses an increasing challenge in curbing the rising energy consumption and co2 emissions in malaysia for more than a decade road vehicles have been the leading contributor in the country due mainly to their heavy reliance on petroleum products particularly gasoline and diesel the efficient utilization of petroleum products becomes paramount in reducing malaysia s overall co2 emissions in the land transportation sector the timely abolition of petroleum product subsidies in 2014 may provide a financial source to support the improvement of petroleum product efficiency the primary purpose of this paper is to examine the impact on economic growth and sectoral performance with fuel subsidy savings being reallocated to the biofuel industry for research and development purposes the study then investigates whether an environmental tax on petroleum products could induce more energy saving and emission control this research applies the computable general equilibrium modeling for the simulation as it takes into account the interaction between petroleum products and the economy as a whole the malaysia input output tables 2010 is the main database used in the simulation the simulation results found that fuel efficiency improvement could produce a double dividend effect with simultaneous benefits on the economy and environmental quality a simultaneous implementation with fuel tax policy appears to be one suitable complementary measure for a further emission cut however sufficient compensation schemes might be necessary to stimulate economic activities over time based on the simulation results policymakers should emphasize fuel efficiency improvement as a crucial strategy to control the rising energy consumption and emissions in malaysia

has government any role in money abstract recent interest in monetary reform has been sparked by the emergence of a world irredeemable paper money system in light of this interest we review the current validity of four good reasons friedman advanced in 1960 to rationalize government intervention we conclude that the forces that produced government involvement in the past will persist deregulation of financial intermediaries is desirable on grounds of market efficiency though it is an open question whether government should continue as lender of last resort we expect that the present world fiat money standard will neither degenerate into hyperinflation nor revert to a commodity standard

aspects of monetary and banking theory and moral hazard we consider two problems in monetary and banking theory in this paper the first of these deals with differences between monetary and tax transfer resolutions of risk sharing problems in overlapping generations 12 15 models of fiat money under uncertainty our second contribution the scenario for which is also motivated in part by interventions needed for risk sharing reasons is an attempt to provide a rationale for interest rate controls on the liabilities of intermediaries that invest in risky assets both models consider environments in which uncertainty exists private markets are incomplete and most importantly some material payoff relevant actions are not perfectly observable the goal of this research is to provide further momentum to theoretical developments that serve to integrate information based models of investment and intermediation with theories of unbacked fiat money and the control of monetary institutions in recent years there has been a great deal of research interest in explicating the micro economic foundations of fiat money i e valued government created assets which are unbacked by payoffs from productive investments or taxes and the uniqueness and criteria for regulation of depository intermediary firms important contributions have been among others the works of bryant 3 the papers in kareken and wallace 7 fama 6 merton 10 and diamond and dybvig 5 asymmetric information based foundations of intermediary functioning have been provided by the papers of leland and pyle 9 followed by diamond 4 in most of this work there has usually been a dichotomy between models that focus on providing and analyzing a role for fiat money and those which analyze the rationale regulation and pricing of capital market intermediaries and their contracts regrettably we persist in having this dichotomy in our work some recent work like fama 6 does merge these two aspects however by emphasizing perfect information complete market environments in which the financial structure irrelevance theorems of modigliani and miller 10 apply models of unbacked fiat money many different types of which are to be found in kareken and wallace 7 can be usefully dichotomized as being of two types in the first fiat money serves the function of opening up or expanding trading opportunities among contemporaneously living agents who have endowment

interpreting new evidence about china and u s silver purchases abstract this paper offers a reinterpretation of the influence on china of america s silver policy in the early 1930 s recently compiled evidence about events in china are described and interpreted in light of a model of free banking under a commodity standard our interpretation is that the u s silver purchase program did not set off a chain of bad economic events which eventually forced china off silver and onto a fiat standard rather china was forced off silver by its own government which wanted to make itself the beneficiary of the capital gain associated with the appreciation of silver and to relieve itself of the restrictions that are imposed on government finance by a commodity standard

liquidity banking and bank failures a multiperiod model with risk neutral agents is constructed in which a liquidity problem arises in an equilibrium with decentralized tradin g in capital which banking institutions are able to alleviate depos it contracts provide for early withdrawal banks hold debt and agent s who borrow from banks hold compensating balances institutional col lapse or a state of the world when bank failures are experienced is associated with a high demand for liquidity low output and a lower than average level of welfare bank failure is symptomatic of a part icular state of endowments preferences and technology and governme nt intervention is undesirable copyright 1988 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

the 1985 ohio thrift crisis the fslic s solvency and rate contagion for retail cds this paper uses both an arima transfer function intervention model and a panel data analysis to examine the effect of the ohio deposit insurance crisis in 1985 on the pricing of six month retail certificates of deposit cds for federally insured ohio banks and savings and loans adjusting for pricing reactions due to changes in market rates we find a significant unanticipated rise in cd rate premiums on the initial event week of the crisis that continued for approximately seven weeks consistent with a contingent insurance guarantee hypothesis rate premiums are found to be risk based from both a regulator s and a bank manager s perspective it is important to understand the nature of depositors reactions to a depository institution crisis recent events including large real estate loan losses for major banks the rhode island deposit insurance crisis and the general accounting office s gao announcement that a large bank failure or a severe recession could jeopardize the solvency of the federal deposit insurance corporation fdic have renewed debate over the potential for a widespread loss of confidence in the banking system in particular concern has been expressed over the potential for instability in retail deposit markets in a deregulated environment see smith 1984 1

spatial competition in the banking system localization cross subsidies and the regulation of deposit rates abstract the paper analyses a spatial competition model of the banking sector banks offer two kind of services deposits and credit and can either borrow or lend on the money market we investigate the consequences of the regulation of rates paid on deposits the main conclusions are as follows regulation first increases network size beyond social optimum in the long run it results in lower equilibrium credit rates because of increased competition secondly regulation generates tied sales contracts by which banks propose bundles of credit and deposit services tied sales in turn motivate the introduction of cross subsidies between the two activities the rent levied upon regulated deposits financing lower rates in the credit market finally it is shown that in a regulated environment the effectiveness of monetary policy is reduced in the sense that fluctuations of money market rates are less than fully transmitted in credit rates

bank panics suspensions and geography some notes on the contagion of fear in banking bank panics suspensions and geography some notes on the contagion of fear in banking recent attempts to understand bank panics tend to emphasize informational asymmetries or the possibilities of multiple equilibria such approaches stand in contrast to historical research that emphasizes legal factors influencing the organization of the banking system this paper constructs a model of a banking system operating under regulations similar to those in effect under the national banking system and in which information is complete in all other respects the model resembles that of diamond and dybvig 1983 the results indicate that given the regulatory environment it would have been surprising if suspensions of convertibility had not recurred periodically i introduction traditional explanations of panics under the national banking system 1863 1913 offered both by scholars and contemporaries stressed three factors 1 limitations on branching created incentives for the development and heavy use of correspondent banking relations 2 regulations favored holding interbank deposits with a relatively small group of new york banks this concentrated the reserves of the banking system in one location guaranteeing that heavy withdrawals of interbank balances from any source would affect new york banks and through them the entire banking system 3 legal restrictions prevented banks especially those holding large interbank deposits from adjusting interest rates in order to protect those deposits during periods of heavy withdrawal demand 1 this traditional explanation of the periodic recurrence of panics which emphasizes the organization of the banking system stands in marked contrast to more recent theories of panics which tend to focus on various informational asymmetries between banks and depositors 2 most of the recent literature on panics follows diamond and dybvig 1983 in modelling banks as a mechanism for pooling liquidity risks faced by depositors more specifically potential depositors can invest in the same primary assets available to banks however primary assets are costly to liquidate and depositors face random future liquidity needs at the time they make their investment decisions in such a framework the role of banks is to create and issue liabilities more liquid than their assets this activity provides insurance to depositors against random liquidity needs in diamond and dybvig s paper exogenous shocks to agents liquidity preference motivate withdrawal demand contracts between banks and depositors allow agents with liquidity needs to liquidate deposits at a lower cost than would be incurred in liquidating the primary asset however for each withdrawal due to inopportune liquidity needs a bank must liquidate primary assets and bear these costs hence the provision of liquidity by banks is feasible only if withdrawal demand is restricted to those actually requiring liquidity in the model of diamond and dybvig 3 panics can occur because the liquidity needs of individuals are private information in particular banks are assumed to be unable to observe whether any individual needs liquidity and hence cannot limit payments to individuals who actually need to withdraw funds banks are thus subject to runs as the result of self fulfilling prophecies if all depositors fear a run and they all seek to withdraw it will not be feasible for the banking system to provide liquidity to all of them thus the banking system must either suspend payments or be rendered insolvent of course a crucial component of this reasoning is that banks cannot distinguish legitimate from panic motivated withdrawals and hence cannot ration funds on this basis this model of panics provides no role for the organization of the banking system it therefore suggests that different countries or different regulatory regimes within the same country should have similar histories with respect to panics so long as they had similar deposit insurance schemes and similarly behaving lenders of last resort

do open market operations matter theory and evidence from the second bank of the united states abstract modigliani miller theorems for open market operations describe conditions under which central bank portfolio rearrangements will have no consequences for allocations relative prices or the time path of the price level such theorems for government owned central banks have limited applicability and hence are difficult to test we develop a modigliani miller theorem for privately owned central banks and test its implications using data from the second bank of the united states the data are consistent with an absence of price level effects due to open market operations and are inconsistent with standard versions of the quantity theory of money

towards a low carbon growth in mexico is a double dividend possible a dynamic general equilibrium assessment this paper simulates the medium and long term impact of proposed and expected energy policy on the environment and on the mexican economy the analysis has been conducted with a multi sector macroeconomic model for the evaluation of environmental and energy policy three me this model is well suited for policy assessment purposes in the context of developing economies as it indicates the transitional effects of policy intervention three me estimates the carbon tax required to meet emissions reduction targets within the mexican climate change law and assesses alternative policy scenarios each reflecting a different strategy for the recycling of tax revenues with no compensation the taxation policy would reduce co2 emissions by more than 75 by 2050 with respect to business as usual bau but at high economic costs under full redistribution of carbon tax revenues a double dividend arises the policy appears beneficial both in terms of gdp and co2 emissions reduction

bank competition and financial stability in asia pacific the impact of bank competition on financial stability has been a focus of academic and policy debate over the last two decades and particularly since the 2007 08 global financial crises beck 2008 oecd 2011 under the traditional competition fragility view banks cannot earn monopoly rents in competitive markets and this results in lower profits capital ratios and charter values this makes banks less able to withstand demand or supply side shocks and encourages excessive risk taking marcus 1984 alternatively the competition stability view suggests that competition leads to greater stability a less competitive banking market may lead to more risk taking if the big banks are deemed too important to fail and as such obtain implicit or explicit subsidies via government safety nets mishkin 1999 in addition banks with more market power tend to charge higher loan rates which may induce borrowers to assume greater risk leading to greater default in competitive banking markets loan rates are lower too big to fail issues and safety net subsidies are smaller and this results in a positive link between bank competition and stability boyd and de nicolo 2005 it could also be the case as noted by martinez miera and repullo 2010 that bank competition and stability are linked in a non linear manner and in a similar vein berger et al 2009 argue that competition and concentration may coexist and can simultaneously induce stability or fragility

asymmetric information and optimal bank reserves one traditional argument in favor of bank reserve requirements holds that since a b ank and its depositors are asymmetrically informed as to the bank s reserve position and its portfolio the bank will hold too few reserves and too risky a port folio this being the case presumably a central banking authority is equipped t o impose and to monitor a minimal reserve requirement yielding a pareto superior outcome this paper analyzes this position in the context of a formalmodel and shows that at least for some parameters of the model there is such a case for a minimal reserve requirement copyright 1987 by ohio state university press

distributional effects of a carbon tax on chinese households a case of shanghai abstract as an effective policy instrument to reduce co 2 emissions the effects of a carbon tax on distribution have been the critical factor in determining whether a carbon tax will be acceptable in china taking shanghai as an example which is the economic center and front runner of china this paper estimates the distributional effect of a carbon tax on households in various income groups by using the input output model and the suits index the results indicate that the comprehensive distributional effect of the carbon tax is regressive the expenditure of the low income group caused by the carbon tax accounts for 0 853 of the total expenditure while that of the high income group 0 712 the direct distributional effect presents a weak progressivity while the indirect one is significantly regressive and the latter is much larger than the former moreover the suits index of the carbon tax is 0 078 implying that the carbon tax burden on the low income group is the highest and thus that a carbon tax can intensify income inequality therefore when introducing a carbon tax some rational associated redistribution or compensation measures such as purposive transfer payments should be implemented to restrict or even eliminate the regressivity of the carbon tax

explaining the demand for free bank notes abstract this paper explains why the risky notes of banks established during the free banking era 1837 1863 were demanded even when relatively safe specie gold and silver coin was an alternative free bank notes were demanded because they were priced to reflect the expected value of their backing the empirical evidence supports this explanation specifically in new york wisconsin and indiana the expected value of backing was sufficient for free bank notes to circulate at par which they did in minnesota the backing for notes was very poor they exchanged well below par being treated as small denomination securities

the emancipation proclamation confederate expectations and the price of southern bank notes we examine the behavior of a semimonthly series of the confederate dollar price of bank notes these notes traded at par with confederate dollars from october of 1861 until november 5 1862 we use a model of the demand for two currencies to argue that this departure from par results from altered southern expectations after the 1862 congressional elections assured the enactment of the emancipation proclamation previously southerners believed a win or a negotiated settlement would allow a return to the union intact when these expectations changed bank notes appreciated against confederate dollars in addition our empirical work shows that notes appreciated following northern victories

solvency regulations and the management of banking risks abstract in the recent years international banking authorities have succeeded implementing harmonized solvency regulations however two stages can be distinguished 1 up to 1993 a rigid approach has prevailed with the cooke ratio for credit risks and the standardized approach to market risks 2 since then a movement towards flexibility has been acknowledged notably with the validation of internal models of the var type and the precommitment proposal of kupiec and o brien the objective of this article is to discuss the pros and cons of these different approaches within a coherent conceptual framework that applies contract theory to the regulation of banking

private money and banking regulation we show that the regulation of lending practices is desirable for the optimal provision of private money in an environment in which bankers cannot commit to repay their creditors neither an unregulated banking system nor a form of narrow banking in which banks hold 100 in reserves can provide the socially efficient amount of money if bankers provided such an amount then they would prefer to default on their liabilities we show that a regulation that increases the value of the banking sector s assets e g by limiting competition in credit markets will mitigate the commitment problem if the return on the banking sector s assets is made sufficiently large then it is possible to implement an efficient allocation

meetings with costly participation reply this note corrects an error in an example in meetings with costly participation aer 90 4 927 943 it characterizes the set of equilibria for the example under the assumptions in the paper shows that in all the equilibria an interval of moderate po sitions is devoid of participants and provides assumptions under which the result as originally stated is correct

bank panics government guarantees and the long run size of the financial sector evidence from free banking america governments attempt to increase the confidence of financial market participants by making implicit or explicit guarantees of uncertain credibility confidence in these guarantees presumably alters the size of the financial sector but observing the long run consequences of failed guarantees is difficult we look to america s free banking era and compare the consequences of a broken guarantee during the indiana centered panic of 1854 to the panic of 1857 in which guarantees were honored our estimates of a model of endogenous market structure indicate substantial negative long run consequences to financial depth when panics cast doubt upon a government s ability to honor its guarantees

meetings with costly participation we study a collective decision making process in which people interested in an issue may participate at a cost in a meeting and the resulting decision is a compromise among the participants preferences we show that the equilibrium number of participants is small and their positions are extreme and when the compromise is the median the outcome is likely to be random the model and its equilibria are consistent with evidence on the procedures and outcomes of us regulatory hearings jel d7 h0 l5

the causes of free bank failures a detailed examination abstract in this paper we propose and test a new explanation of bank behavior during the free banking era 1837 1863 arguing against the conventional view that free bank failures were due to wildcat banking we claim they were caused by falling asset prices confronting both explanations with our new and detailed data set developed from state auditor reports we find that the falling asset price explanation of free bank failures explains far more failures than does the wildcatting hypothesis