Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crying about a Strategic Wolf: A Theory of Crime and Warning

Abstract We analyze cheap talk warnings about a strategic adversary, with applications to cybersecurity and national security. Each period an expert receives a noisy private signal about whether an attack by the adversary is feasible. The expert wants to warn a decision maker while also maintaining credibility for future warnings, but unlike in a standard cheap talk game, the adversary can undermine the expert's credibility by delaying attack. While such delays increase “warning fatigue,” they also make the expert less tempted to exaggerate so as to avoid too many false alarms. We show that the net effect of a strategic adversary can be better incentive alignment between the expert and decision maker that benefits them both. Moreover, we show that sometimes the expert and decision maker benefit from the expert's ability to exaggerate, as this can induce more defensive action and more strategic delay.
Treatment of Outliers: Firm Heterogeneity in Managerial Incentive and Corporate Innovation

Ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates are frequently used to measure the effects of managerial incentives on corporate innovation. However, these estimates suffer from two data problems. First, corporate innovation data have a discrete spike at zero because many firms never engage in corporate innovation. Second, univariate outliers are common in our data. This paper uses a mixture distribution model which contains a two-stage regression procedure to handle these problems. In the first-stage, a cross-sectional logistic regression is used to objectively distinguish innovative industries from non-innovative ones. In the second-stage, quantile regressions are used to estimate the heterogeneous effects only across firms in the innovative industries. Our out-of-sample tests indicate that the mixture distribution model outperforms the single equation model which uses all the firms in the estimation. Our quantile regression results differ meaningfully between the two models. We find a positive relation between corporate innovation and vega (sensitivity of CEO wealth to stock volatility) only through the mixture distribution model. We also find that OLS coefficient estimates of delta (CEO pay-for-performance sensitivity) are fragile to outliers while quantile regression estimates are not. Dropping only one firm from a sample of 635 firms reduces the OLS estimates of delta by more than 250%, rendering them statistically insignificant.
Does a sexually selected trait represent a burden in locomotion

This study tested the hypothesis that in Montezuma swordtail Xiphophorus montezumae, bearers of longer swords would face higher costs in terms of swimming speed than males with shorter swords, as a result of differences in total body length when natural swords were present. Variation in natural sword length, however, did not appear to be correlated with the cost in terms of critical swimming speed, Ucrit. On the other hand, the mean Ucrit of males with the sword excised was 21% higher than that when natural sword was present. This study suggests that the sword of Montezuma swordtail represents a disadvantage in terms of swimming performance regardless of the differences in sword length.
Monetary Transmission Mechanisms in MENA: The Case of Bank Lending Channel

Most of the works related to monetary policy transmission mechanisms did not take into account the special case of developing countries. In these countries, given their features (exchange rate rigidity, financial fragility, banking prominence, etc.), it seems that the most reliable monetary transmission mechanism is the lending channel. The purpose of this paper is to focus specifically on this channel in 16 MENA Countries by using a GMM system on dynamic panel aggregated data from 1990 to 2015. We regress credit volume on the instrument of monetary policy. Meanwhile, we add many control variables to resolve the supply-demand puzzle. Thereafter, we include variables describing the sensitiveness of the lending behavior to the institutional environment quality as well as to key banking sector characteristics. Our results suggest that the lending channel is operational in MENA countries and is often related to past lending behavior. Moreover, the supply of loans is sensitive to institutional framework once there is a change in monetary policy.
Voluntary Information Disclosure with Heterogeneous Beliefs

Abstract We present a model in which an insider (i.e., manager or CEO) and an informed outsider (i.e., financial analyst or professional) have heterogeneous beliefs on their shared information about a risky asset and analyze the insider's incentive to voluntarily disclose this information to the public. We find that with heterogeneous beliefs the insider and informed outsider exploit their shared information differently and this might give rise to the insider's voluntary disclosure of this shared information to the public to seek excess profits. Specifically, the insider is more likely to release the information to the public when she has a greater relative information advantage than the informed outsider and that the informed outsider is more optimistic in the shared information. Our findings shed light on why some firm insiders prefer to trade against informed outsiders while others prefer to drive informed outsiders out of trading through voluntary disclosure.
Are Debt and Incentive Compensation Substitutes in Controlling the Free Cash Flow Agency Problem?

This paper investigates the governance implications of a firm's capital structure and managerial incentive compensation and the substitutability of these two mechanisms in controlling the free cash flow agency problem. The study is designed to explore the different ways that debt and incentives work on the agency problem. Debt directly restricts the investment scale while incentive compensation makes investment less sensitive to free cash flow. The substitutability of debt and incentive compensation and the potential endogeneity of investment, capital structure and compensation are examined by estimating a nonlinear simultaneous equations system. The results suggest: (1) Debt and executive stock options act as substitutes in attenuating a firm's free cash flow problem, which provides a partial answer to the puzzle as to why some firms predominantly grant options but issue little debt despite their excess debt capacity. (2) Failure to incorporate the substitutability and endogeneity of capital structure and incentive compensation leads to underestimates of the magnitude and economic implication of their capital structure and compensation structure to control for overinvestment. (4) Firm characteristics differ across the prevalence of debt usage versus option usage, suggesting the heterogeneity in the costs and benefits of the monitoring devices. (5) All the above effects are more prominent in firms that tend to have more severe free cash flow problems.
Capacity Allocation for Producing Age-Based Products

We consider a firm's production and sales decisions for an age-based product (e.g. whiskey, wine, or cheese) whose value increases with aging. The firm has been selling only a younger aged product but is considering introducing a new product by setting some of its production aside to age longer. The firm has a fixed production capacity and the differently aged products are partial substitutes. As such, the firm must decide, period by period, how much, if any, of that period's production to set aside for additional aging. <br><br>While the currently available younger product faces a stable and known demand, we consider scenarios in which the demand of the new product is either (1) deterministic or (2) stochastic. <br><br>In the deterministic demand scenario, we provide an analytic solution to the infinite horizon problem and show that the optimal fraction of production reserved for additional aging increases to a steady state solution. Though our model is dynamic, we show that a static policy, which is easy to compute and intuitively appealing, performs quite well. For the stochastic-demand scenario, we show that, under reasonable conditions, a "certainty equivalence'' policy is optimal. Hence the stochastic problem is effectively equivalent to the deterministic demand case.
Forecasting Canadian Time Series with the New-Keynesian Model

This paper documents the out-of-sample forecasting accuracy of the New Keynesian Model for Canada. We repeatedly estimate our variant of the model on a series of rolling subsamples, forecasting out-of-sample one to eight quarters ahead at each step. We then compare these forecasts to those arising from simple VARs, using econometric tests of forecasting accuracy. Our results show that the forecasting accuracy of the New Keynesian model compares favourably to that of the benchmarks, particularly as the forecasting horizon increases. These results suggest that the model can become a useful forecasting tool for Canadian time series. The principle of parsimony is invoked to explain our findings.
Financial System Architecture and the Co-Evolution of Banks and Capital Markets

We study how financial system architecture evolves through the development of banks and financial markets. The predominant existing view is that banks and markets compete, which often contradicts actual patterns of development. We show that banks and markets exhibit three forms of interaction: they compete, they complement each other, and they co-evolve. Co-evolution is generated by two elements missing in previous analyses of financial system architecture: securitization and bank equity capital. As banks evolve via improvements in credit screening, they securitize higher-quality credits in the capital market. This encourages greater investor participation and spurs capital market evolution. And, if capital market evolution is spurred by exogenous shocks that cause more investors to participate, banks find it cheaper to raise equity capital to satisfy endogenously-arising risk-sensitive capital requirements. Banks thus serve previously-unserved high-risk borrowers, stimulating bank evolution. Numerous additional results are drawn out.
S-Convexity and Gross Substitutability

A New Concept to Study Substitute Structures in Economics and Operations Models In “S-Convexity and Gross Substitutability,” Chen and Li propose a novel concept of S-convex functions defined on continuous spaces, which extends a key concept of M-natural-convex functions in discrete convex analysis. They develop a host of fundamental properties and characterizations of S-convex functions. In a parametric maximization model with a box constraint, they show that the set of optimal solutions is nonincreasing in the parameters if the objective function is S-concave and prove the necessity of S-concavity under some conditions. The monotonicity result finds notable inventory models. Interestingly, the authors show that S-concavity is the correct notion characterizing gross substitutability, an important concept in economics for markets with divisible goods.
Separation of Helophorus grandis, maritimus and occidentalis sp.n. (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae) by banded chromosome analysis

Abstract Examination of the chromosomes shows that Helophorus grandis Ill. is a species quite separate from H.maritimus Rey. Further investigation shows that while the karyotype of H.grandis is the same in populations from southern England, northern and central France, and the northern half of Spain, that of H.maritimus from the Camargue is sufficiently different from supposed maritimus from central Spain for the Spanish specimens to be regarded as a separate species, here described as H.occidentalis sp.n. Aedeagophores of the three species are figured, along with additional maritimus‐like material.
THE EFFECT OF INTER-FIRM MANAGERIAL SOCIAL TIES ON ALLIANCE FORMATION: HOW POORLY EMBEDDED FIRMS OVERCOME NETWORK DISADVANTAGES

We investigate how inter-firm managerial social ties (IFMSTs) facilitate strategic alliances formation by arguing that IFMSTs serve as an information channel critical for alliance formation. Using an extensive sample of U.S. public firms from the years 2000 to 2008, we find strong evidence firms connected through IFMSTs are more likely to form alliances and the effect of these social ties on alliance formation interacts with the preexisting alliance network structure to enhance alliance formation particularly for poorly embedded firms. Furthermore, poorly embedded firms benefit most from activity-based IFMSTs as these interpersonal ties engender an alternative mechanism for information exchanges at the firm level. We integrate insights from both relational embeddedness and structural embeddedness theories and exemplify the multiplexity nature of social embeddedness in inter-organizational behaviors.
Distributive Politics and Crime

We examine whether and how central-to-local fiscal transfers reduce crime, an important but understudied aspect of distributive politics. Estimating the causal effect of redistribution on crime is complicated by the problem of simultaneity: transfers may be targeted precisely where crime is a problem. Our research design takes advantage of municipality-level panel data from Japan spanning a major electoral system reform that reduced the level of malapportionment across districts. This provides an opportunity to use the change in malapportionment as an instrumental variable, as malapportionment affects redistribution outcomes, but the change caused by the reform is orthogonal to local crime rates. Naive estimates show almost no effect of transfers on crime, whereas the IV results show statistically significant and negative effects. These findings support the argument that redistribution reduces crime, while also raising broader implications about the relationship between Japan’s well-known pattern of distributive politics and its comparatively low crime rate.
Do Institutional Investors Monitor Their Large vs. Small Investments Differently? Evidence from the Say-on-Pay Vote

Widely-cited theoretical models predict that large shareholders will monitor management, while small shareholders will free-ride. However, we find that institutional investors are particularly likely to oppose management on Say-On-Pay for their small-scale shareholdings; the presence of a large blockholder further catalyzes their opposition. We also find that the scale of investment at the institutional level predicts voting patterns better than the scale of investment at the fund level. Overall, our findings demonstrate that, when a low-cost monitoring opportunity is available, small positions that aggregate to a large level of ownership across institutions can play a meaningful role in corporate governance.
The Importance of the Shopping Experience in Times of Recession: An Analysis from the Perspective of the Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Values

The textile industry has been one of the most resilient in the current economic recession with positive overall results in the sector although there was a contraction of the online sales last year in Spain. Precisely e-commerce is expected to be an important source of growth in the sector in the upcoming years so it seems necessary to determine the influence of the recession on consumers’ shopping behaviour. To address this objective a quantitative approach has been taken through the application of a questionnaire to 1522 people in Spain to determine first, how consumers' shopping experiences relate to their income level and secondly, what motivates consumers to use different channels and their intentions to use them based on their working situation. The results establish the need of creating a superior shopping experience in bricks-and-mortar stores and online channel and to promote the use of e-commerce by fashion retailers. The theoretical framework of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values is applied to measure consumers’ shopping experiences and shopping motivations in a multichannel retail environment, in the textile sector, in Spain.
Tropical cyclones and reproductive ecology of Crocodylus acutus Cuvier, 1807 (Reptilia: Crocodilia: Crocodylidae) on a Caribbean atoll in Mexico

Crocodylus acutus, a coastal species nesting in sand beaches, could be affected by increasing tropical cyclone frequency. We studied key characteristics of C. acutus reproductive ecology on Banco Chinchorro atoll from 2006 to 2009, including the impact of two tropical cyclones. Hurricanes increased canopy openness causing earlier nesting the following year. Crocodiles nested at the beginning of the wet season with hatching in mid-wet season; this could represent a compromise between risking nest flooding and increasing freshwater availability for hatchlings. Tropical cyclones dramatically reduced nesting success by cooling and flooding clutches. Nursery sites were usually hypersaline, but heavy rainfall from tropical cyclones can likely benefit hatchling survival by decreasing salinity. While tropical cyclones have negative short-term impacts on crocodile nesting, they likely have an overall beneficial effect by creating and maintaining open sandy nesting areas used by C. acutus and they may explain its widespread distribution in Caribbean coastal areas.
VOLATILE NITROGEN‐CONTAINING COMPOUNDS GENERATED FROM MAILLARD REACTIONS UNDER SIMULATED DEEP‐FAT FRYING CONDITIONS

A total of 29 volatile nitrogen-containing compounds were identified from model systems containing glutamine, glutamic acid, asparagine and aspartic acid, respectively, with glucose under simulated deep-fat frying conditions in corn oil. Alkylpyrazines were the most important flavor compound generated. Glutamine, which released free ammonia easily under this condition gave the highest yield of alkylpyrazines. The profiles of pyrazines produced by each amino acid were significantly different. In a glutamine system, 2-(2-furyl)pyrazine, 2-(2-furyl)- 5-methylpyrazine and 2-(2-furyl)-6-methylpyrazine were the major compounds generated.
Inducing Compliance with Post-Market Studies for Drugs Under FDA’s Accelerated Approval Pathway

Problem definition: In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instituted the accelerated approval pathway (AP) to allow promising drugs to enter the market based on limited evidence of efficacy, thereby permitting manufacturers to verify true clinical benefits through postmarket studies. However, most postmarket studies have not been completed as promised. We address this noncompliance problem. Academic/practical relevance: The prevalence of this noncompliance problem poses considerable public health risk, thus compromising the original purpose of a well-intentioned AP initiative. We provide an internally consistent and implementable solution to the problem through a comprehensive analysis of the myriad complicating factors and trade-offs facing the FDA. Methodology: We adopt a Stackelberg framework in which the regulator, which cannot observe the manufacturer’s private cost information or level of effort, leads by imposing a postmarket study deadline. The profit-maximizing manufacturer then follows by establishing its level of effort to invest in its postmarket study. In establishing its deadline, the regulator optimizes the trade-off between providing public access to potentially effective drugs and mitigating public health risks from ineffective drugs. Results: We develop a deadline-dependent user fee menu as a screening mechanism that establishes an incentive for manufacturer compliance. We show that its effectiveness in inducing compliance depends fundamentally on the enforceability of sanction, a drug-specific measure that indicates how difficult it is to withdraw an unproven drug from the market, and the drug’s success probability: The higher either is, the higher is the probability that the mechanism induces compliance. Managerial implications: We synthesize and distill the salient trade-offs and nuances facing the FDA’s noncompliance problem and provide an implementable solution. We quantify the value of the solution as a function of a drug’s success probability and enforceability. From a public policy perspective, we provide guidance for the FDA to increase the viability and effectiveness of AP.
Earnings Announcements and the Rise of Passive Ownership

This paper proposes a way to measure the effect of rising passive ownership on stock price informativeness that does not rely on any particular model. I examine patterns in trading volume, returns and volatility around days we know information is released: earnings announcements. Between 1990 and 2018, pre-earnings abnormal trading volume and the pre-earnings drift declined, while the share of annual volatility on earnings days increased. At the firm-level, there is a negative relationship between passive ownership and pre-earnings price informativeness. This result is robust to using only quasi-exogenous increases in passive ownership associated with S&P 500 additions and Russell 1000/2000 rebalancing. I link increases in passive ownership to decreases in information gathering: increases in passive ownership are correlated with fewer analysts covering a stock, fewer downloads of SEC filings, and a larger response to earnings news.
16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence characterization and phylogenetic analysis of a dibenzo‐p‐dioxin‐degrading isolate within the new genus Sphingomonas

Partial 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons have been used to determine the phylogenetic placement of the Elbe River isolate RW1, the first described bacterium capable of complete mineralization of dibenzo‐p‐dioxin. Sequence similarities, cluster analysis and signature positions demonstrate that RW1 groups with other species of Sphingomonas as a distinct, new species of this genus.
Anybody out There?: The Future of Tax

Most tax revenue and tax policy research papers discuss historical developments and the current challenges of raising tax revenue. This paper takes a long term view and addresses the possible futures of tax revenue using the Three Horizons model. With the help of this model, it outlines possible futures for raising tax revenue in an environment of rapidly evolving technology, automation, globalization, the rising power of powerful interest groups,and the trend of increased accumulation of wealth in the hands of fewer taxpayers. By analyzing possible futures, the assumptions of key stakeholders are tested.
Modelling Asset Prices under Heterogeneous Beliefs

Asset pricing theorists have recently started to study the market impact of differences in beliefs among participants. The analysis is often carried out in the framework of Radner's perfect foresight ('rational expectations') equilibrium. Here, we study when this makes sense. In particular, we are concerned about clashes between perfect foresight (of future prices) and participants' own beliefs. Is it possible that perfect foresight may reveal to a participant that her beliefs are wrong? We show that a sufficient condition to avoid such clashes is if higher-order beliefs (about other participants' beliefs) are correct.
On the dependence structure between S&P500, VIX and implicit Interexpectile Differences

We study the dependence structure between the S&P500, the VIX Index, and implicit Interexpectile Differences, that are an alternative measure of implied volatility based on the notion of implicit expectile, recently introduced in Bellini et al. [Implicit expectiles and measures of implied volatility. Quant. Finance, 2018a, 18, 1851–1864]. After filtering the time series of the marginals by ARMA-(E)GARCH models, we fit several parametric families of copulas to the pairwise joint distribution of the residuals, in order to investigate the presence of radial asymmetry and asymptotic tail dependence. We find a negative dependence between S&P500 and both implied volatility indices and a positive dependence between VIX and Interexpectile Differences. The best fitting copulas seem relatively stable over time and display both asymmetry and strong tail dependence, in accordance with the leverage effect.