Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Focusing on the Upside or the Downside: A Model of Menu-Dependent Risk Attitude

We offer a new account for the well-documented empirical fact that people display inconsistent risk preferences. Our approach is to apply a theory of focusing (Kőszegi and Szeidl, 2013) to choice under risk. In our model, the decision maker may focus more on (and thus overweight) the upside or the downside of each prospect, depending on which side permits the starker comparison, and consequently the decision maker displays menu-dependent risk attitudes. We show that this highly parsimonious model accounts for many of the observed anomalies in choice under risk, and we distinguish this theory from existing theories of risky choice.
Short Term Forecasts of Economic Activity: Are Fortnightly Factors Useful?

A short term mixed-frequency model is proposed to estimate and forecast the Italian economic activity fortnightly. Building on Frale et al. (2011), we introduce a dynamic factor model with three frequencies (quarterly, monthly and fortnightly), by selecting indicators that show significant coincident and leading properties and are representative of both demand and supply. We find that high-frequency indicators improve the real time forecasts of Italian GDP. Moreover, the model provides a new fortnightly indicator of GDP, consistent with the official quarterly series. Our results emphasize the potential benefit of the high frequency series, providing forecasting gains beyond those based on monthly variables alone.
Running for the Exit? International Bank Lending During a Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis and the related sharp reduction in cross-border credit have reignited the debate about the risks of financial globalization. We use loan-level data on lending by the largest international banks to their various countries of operation to examine how banks reduced cross-border credit after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Country-, firm-, and bank-fixed effects allow us to disentangle credit supply and demand and to simultaneously control for the unobserved traits of banks as well as the countries and firms they lend to. We document substantial heterogeneity in the extent to which different banks retrenched from the same country: there was no blanket ‘run for the exit’. Instead, banks reduced credit less to markets that were geographically close; where they had more lending experience; where they operated a subsidiary; and where they were integrated into a network of domestic co-lenders. Deeper financial integration is associated with more stable cross-border credit during times of crisis.
Impact of Organizational Culture on Job Stress and Employee Engagement in Pakistan

This study investigated the relationship between organizational culture, job stress, and employee engagement. It also attempted to find out the dominant organizational culture in Pakistan. For assessing the culture the competing values framework was adopted which differentiates culture in four types which are clan, adhocracy, hierarchy and market culture. Data were collected from 207 respondents by means of Likert scale type questionnaire that comprised of demographics, questions related to culture, stress, and engagement. For analysis, PLS CFA and SEM techniques were used. Results showed that market culture is the most dominant in Pakistan and has a significant positive relationship with job stress and significant negative relationship with employee engagement, hierarchy culture is the second most dominant and has an insignificant positive relationship with both stress and engagement. Clan culture is the third most dominant and has a significant negative relationship with job stress and a significant positive relationship with employee engagement, adhocracy culture is least present in Pakistan and has an insignificant negative relationship with stress and insignificant positive relationship with engagement. Job stress has a significant negative relationship with employee engagement. The findings suggested that organizations should make efforts to shift towards clan culture which has the highest engagement levels and lowest stress levels of employees.
The Proliferation of Sovereigns: Are There Lessons for Integration?

While most of the attention recently has gone to the vaguely defined phenomenon of “globalization” it is not often noted that an empirically equally important phenomenon is the proliferation of sovereign states. This proliferation of states has created increasing numbers of the political and economic perquisites of statehood: not only are their more flags, more borders, more armies, but also more monies, more control of labor flows, more control of trade, more independent contract enforcers (judiciaries), more independently determined economic policies. In this paper we ask what can be learned from the grand “experiment” with the expansion of the numbers of sovereign states about current discussions of reform and integration. First, we examine the pattern of expanding numbers of sovereign states. Second, we postulate a simple theoretical framework that establishes that sovereignty may increase or decrease steady state income. The impact of borders would tend to reduce market scope and hence reduce income. The policies adopted with sovereignty could either increase or decrease income. Third, we use an episodic analysis to compare growth outcomes of countries before and after sovereignty. Fourth, we compare the variance of growth outcomes across countries to variances across states or provinces within countries. Fifth, we examine a specific case study by focusing on the variation across the Caribbean. Sixth, we do some econometric analysis to try to disentangle the effect of market size from that of policies. This analysis produces several conclusions. First, unlike the optimistic expectations, the expansion of sovereignty, which allowed national control of economic policies, has not in fact produced universally positive results. In particular, the newly independent countries slowed down relative to OECD countries and did no better on average than old independent countries. Second, econometric analysis shows that — controlling for the quality of policies — the market size effect is large. Third, the variance of outcomes has been dramatically increased by the expansion in sovereignty. Fourth, deep integration — in the sense of binding commitments on the range of actions of the national sovereign — holds some promise of reducing growth rate variance but would only accelerate mean growth if the effect of increasing market size is not accompanied by a worsening of policies.
Bat diversity and abundance associated with the degree of secondary succession in a tropical forest mosaic in south‐eastern Mexico

Under the hypothesis that bat diversity would be lower in the early stages of secondary succession and that species affected negatively by habitat modification would be more frequent in later successional stages, we evaluated how bats use 12 vegetation stands representing four stages of secondary succession, following disturbance caused by slash‐and‐burn agriculture and selective logging. We compared bat richness, abundance and diversity, and found that none of these variables was different among stages or rainy seasons. However, of the 10 most common bat species, two were significantly more abundant in stands at the early stages of secondary succession, while the opposite was true for three other species. Canopy cover mainly explains these patterns. Rainy season had no effect on the abundance of the common species. The results of this study indicate that although some frugivorous species were very abundant in the younger stands, the majority of the rare species were captured in older stands. The absence of rare and habitat‐specialized species from young successional stages close to primary forest suggests that, for effective bat conservation in landscapes modified by human activity, areas with original vegetation should be maintained to ensure the survivorship of sensitive‐to‐deforestation species.
Dream Chasers: The Draw and the Downside of Following House Price Signals

We study individual labor market decisions during the house price run-up of the early 2000s using the career paths of nearly 7 million workers. We find that individuals switch careers to become real estate agents (REAs) at higher rates in areas with stronger house price growth, despite little or no growth in average REA wages. We find that those drawn into real estate come from virtually all parts of the skill, wage, and education spectrums, and respond to both fundamental and non-fundamental house price growth. Examining wages, we find that those drawn into REA near the peak of the run-up experienced substantially lower wage paths than similar non-entrants through the end of our sample in 2017. These effects are particularly severe for entrants in areas with higher non-fundamental growth. Overall, we shed light on some important consequences of house price fluctuations, both fundamental and non-fundamental, on labor market outcomes.
Short- and Long-Run Tradeoff Monetary Easing

In this study, we illustrate a tradeoff between the short-run positive and long-run negative effects of monetary easing by using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model embedding endogenous growth with creative destruction and sticky prices due to menu costs. While a monetary easing shock increases the level of consumption because of price stickiness, it lowers the frequency of creative destruction (i.e., product substitution) because inflation reduces the reward for innovation via menu cost payments. The model calibrated to the U.S. economy suggests that the adverse effect dominates in the long run.
The Effectiveness of Single-Sex Schools through Out-of-School Activities: Evidence from South Korea

Students’ out-of-school activities and time use can play a crucial role in facilitating school effectiveness. Using data from Seoul, South Korea, where the assignment of students into schools is random, we show that single-sex high schools affect the out-of-school activities of boys only, while private high schools affect the out-of-school activities of both genders. Similarly, all-boys schools and private schools, but not all-girls schools, show positive effects on students’ test scores. The effects of school types on test performance weaken once students’ out-of-school activities are controlled for. Thus, school effectiveness is likely to depend on how students’ out-of-school behaviors respond to school inputs.
The (Un)Intended Consequences of M&A Regulation

Economic (Bhagwat, Dam and Harford, 2016), political (Cao, Li and Liu, 2019), and policy (Nam and Hieu, 2017; Bonaime, Gulen and Ion, 2018) uncertainty affect merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. In this paper, we use Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) interventions in the M&A market to investigate whether regulatory uncertainty also matters. Our results support this conjecture. Using the Hoberg and Phillips (2010) similarity scores to identify product market competitors, we uncover a clear and significant DOJ/FTC intervention deterrence effect on future M&A transaction attempts. This deterrence effect is driven by the length of the investigation procedure, a principal factor that exacerbates regulatory uncertainty. Our results identify an (un)intended channel through which M&A regulation hampers efficient resources allocation.
Recursive Lower- and Dual Upper-Bounds for Bermudan-Style Options

Bermudan-style options are priced by simulation by computing lower- and (dual) upper-bounds. However, much less is known about the associated two optimal bounds. This paper adresses this gap and shows that the exercise strategy that maximizes the Bermudan price (Ibanez and Velasco (2016) local least-squares method) also minimizes (no the dual upper-bound itself, but) the gap between the lower- and the upper-bound in a recursive way. We then price Bermudan max-call options with an up-and-out barrier, which is a difficult stopping-time problem, reducing the gap produced by state-of-the-art methods (including least-squares and pathwise optimization) from 200 basis points -- or more to just one figure. Our results indicate that upper-bounds are tighter than lower-bounds, and hence a mid-point will be lower biased (contrary to conventional wisdom).
Corporate Bonds and Product Market Competition

This study explores how competitive threats affect the yield spread of corporate bonds. I find that firms that face high levels of competition also face higher costs of debt. After controlling for common bond-level, firm-level and macroeconomic variables, I find that bondholders of firms that are subject to increased competition demand significantly higher credit spreads than holders of otherwise similar bonds. My analysis also reveals that information about competition is incorporated in corporate bond credit ratings. Combined, these findings provide strong evidence that competitive threats are being reflected in corporate debt prices and that competitive dynamics influence firms' access to capital.
Combining GARCH Model Forecasts of Volatility With Alternative Weighting Schemes in Electricity Markets

In this paper, we study the methods of combining different volatility forecasts using various GARCH models. Given that the major risk exposure for many investors in energy is the volatility of the electricity price, our motivation stems from the fact that there is no single best model for forecasting such volatility. Ample evidence suggests that most of the individual models produce close volatility forecasts with marginal improvement (see e.g., Hansen and Lunde, 2005). In addition, one model may outperform its peers for one country’s wholesale electricity price but not necessarily for other markets since all markets have unique features. Instead of picking one model for one market, we combine them all together for forecasting volatility with different weighting schemes in the spirit of Nowotarski et al. (2014a). We find that the Bayesian model averaging is a very stable and reliable combination method in producing statistically superior forecasts. The results are robust to a series of specifications. We believe that this is the first attempt to combine GARCH models to forecast volatility in electricity markets.
The Effect of Ensiled Mixed Tomato and Apple Pomace on Holstein Dairy Cow

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of replacing alfalfa hay with ensiled mixed tomato and apple pomace (EMTAP) on ruminal fermentation, blood metabolites, chewing activity and apparent digestibility of diets. Six multiparous mid-lactating Holstein dairy cows were used in 3×3 Latin square design. The animals were fed a control (0% EMTAP) and two different levels of EMTAP (15 and 30%) containing diets. The results showed significant differences among treatments. The substitution of EMTAP in dairy cow’s diet was associated with a reduction of chewing activity, better DM and OM digestibility and higher blood metabolites concentration. Feeding EMTAP resulted in a significant higher concentration of acetic, propionic acids, and total volatile fatty acids in rumen and lower rumen pH. It was concluded tha, EMTAP might efficiently comprise up to 30% of the diets. The nutritive value of tomato and apple pomace could be improved when they are used together (50:50) in dairy cows diet.
Honesty, Ability, Norm, and Socioeconomic Status: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh

In a real effort task experiment, we study the (dis)honesty of undergraduate students in Bangladesh. Consistent with earlier studies, when they self-report their performance, a significant fraction of students cheats to varying degrees. We find that an individual’s own ability, as well as social norms in terms of beliefs about peers’ behavior, are the two most important factors influencing (dis)honesty in our experiment. In particular, a higher actual performance in the real effort task reduces both the likelihood and extent of cheating, while the belief that peers are cheating increases both the likelihood and extent of cheating. Additionally, a lower perceived fear of detection increases the extent of cheating, but does not increase the likelihood of cheating. Among the two most important indicators of socioeconomic status that we considered, such as parents’ education and income, only mother’s level of education shows a significant negative effect on the likelihood of cheating.
Hysteresis and Labour Market Institutions: Evidence from the UK and the Netherlands

This paper uses data for the UK and the Netherlands (1983q4-2011q4) to test if hysteresis occurs in these economics, and through what mechanisms. The novelty of the paper resides in the use of a VAR-IRF that encompasses previous hysteresis studies and the use of specific Labour Market Institutions shocks. This allows us to disentangle what specific demand and supply-variables affect unemployment in the long-run. Further we also investigate the impact of different supply and demand-shock on long-term unemployment. Our findings suggest that there is hysteresis in both countries, and that it happens through different channels, namely, long-term unemployment, productivity, capital stock and real long-term interest rates. These results have implications for structural and macroeconomic policies that we also discuss.
Further Studies on Aeromonas. II. Taxonomy of Aeromonas and C27 Strains

Summary: The results are given of a biochemical study of 21 strains of C27. An Adansonian analysis was carried out by electronic computer on these strains and the Aeromonas strains studied in the previous paper (Eddy, 1962). The analysis confirms the proposal that the C27 strains should be excluded from the genus Aeromonas and a description of the new genus, Plesiomonas (Habs & Schubert, 1962), for these organisms is given. The analysis did not clearly establish Aer. formicans as a species distinct from Aer. punctata.
Social Security Contributions and Corporate Financing Decisions: Evidence from China’s Social Insurance Law

This paper investigates whether social security contributions affect corporate financing decisions. Treating the 2011 Social Insurance Law in China as a quasi-natural experiment, our difference-in-differences framework utilizes two-dimension variations: initial social security contribution rates across firms (i.e., high relative to low) and year (i.e., before and after 2011). We find that more social security contributions lead firms to decrease capital structure, particularly for firms with greater labor intensity and tighter financial constraints as well as those located in areas with greater fiscal pressure. Furthermore, consistent with the financial distress hypothesis, a firm’s operating leverage and profitability volatility increase, and the supply of trade credit decreases. Specifically, we exclude several alternative explanations, including firms’ other motivations and creditors’ strategic behavior. Our findings demonstrate that firms tend to choose conservative financing policies to partially mitigate the likelihood of financial distress caused by increasing social security contributions.
The Forecast Dispersion Anomaly Revisted: Time-Series Forecast Dispersion and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

Previous studies use cross-sectional forecast dispersion in examining the relation between forecast dispersion and future stock returns and report an anomalous negative dispersion-return relation. This paper examines how time-series forecast dispersion is distinct in the relation to stock returns from the negative dispersion-return relation. We find that contrary to the previously-known negative dispersion-return relation, there is a strong positive relation between time-series forecast dispersion and stock returns. We also find that time-series forecast dispersion apparently contains systematic risk components and that such risk is priced in stock returns.
EUROPEAN HIGH MOUNTAIN (ALPINE) VEGETATION AND ITS SUITABILITY FOR INDICATING CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

Abstract:High mountain (alpine) vegetation in Europe occurs above the climatic treeline or substitute vegetation from north of the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. As bearing the least modified ecosystems, high mountains offer an opportunity to use their plant and animal species for studying climate change impacts. However, the indicator value of the different vegetation types varies. Treelines, often used in reconstructing past climate by palaeo-scientists, are, in most cases, suppressed by past or present land use and, as a result, their changes need careful interpreting. Glacier forefields are the theatre of primary succession and vegetation changes there have an innate temporal dimension that needs to taken into account. Changes in snowbeds can occur over a relatively short time and are readily interpretable, as long as potential confounding impacts by herbivores are excluded. In the long-term, remote alpine summits with long-established vegetation (but less so those in the sub-nival zone, where primary succession is underway) are likely to yield useful and interpretable information beyond the short- to medium-term impacts of the vagaries of mountain weather.
Poa L. in New Zealand.

Abstract The cosmopolitan genus Poa L. is revised for New Zealand. Of the 46 species recognised, 35 are indigenous, with all, except P. cookii of Macquarie, Kerguelen and Heard Is, endemic to the New Zealand Botanical Region. Ten naturalised species are recognised, eight from Europe, two from Australia. Eight new species and two new subspecies are described; 1 variety is raised to specific rank and 2 varieties raised to subspecific rank. A new name P. cita, is provided for the widespread silver tussock, formerly recorded as P. caes-pitosa. The relationship between the New Zealand subantarctic species and monotypic Parodiochloa of the southern South American region is briefly discussed; plants formerly referred to coastal Poa triodioides are regarded as belonging in Austrofestuca. Nine interspecific hybrids are discussed.
Back to the Future? The Changing Role of Government in China's Economic Development

This paper reviews the changing role of government in China’s economic development during the last four decades. It argues that China’s outstanding economic performance has been largely caused by draining three “quake lakes” created by the command economy, thus releasing a huge potential locked in by the old system. It shows that just like what happened in the early years of reform when modest policy shifts could produce big steps forward, seemingly minor policy changes could also result in big steps backward. Backtracking can be self-reinforcing and “ex post coherent”, and reforms can run into the danger of sliding “back to the future” if the right lessons of China’s 40 years of reforms are not learnt.
A revised taxonomy for the subfamily Caloplacoideae (Teloschistaceae, Ascomycota) based on molecular phylogeny

The phylogeny of the subfamily Xanthorioideae (Teloschistaceae) is re-analysed based on ITS, LSU and mtSSU sequences, including a new set of specimens representing 31 genera, of which five are proposed as new: Golubkovia, Igneoplaca, Langeottia, Scythioria and Verrucoplaca. Two new species, Ovealmbornia volkmarwirthii from South Africa and Gondwania sejongensis from Antarctica are described, illustrated and compared with closely related taxa. Eleven new combinations are proposed in the genera Calogaya, Cerothallia, Flavoplaca, Gondwania, Igneoplaca, Scythioria and Verrucoplaca, but the status of four earlier established genera, Pachypeltis, Parvoplaca, Solitaria and Xanthopeltis, remains uncertain and needs further studies.