1,720,977 research outputs found
An options-based model of equilibrium credit rationing
No full textThis paper applies options theory to the model of equilibrium credit rationing developed by [Stiglitz, J.E., Weiss, A., 1981. Credit rationing in markets with imperfect information, American Economic Review, 71, 727–752.] by noticing that, given a standard debt contract and limited liability, the payoffs to the lender and the borrower when a loan is made involve a put and call option respectively. Information asymmetry is modelled using stochastic volatility option pricing methods. There are three advantages to the options approach. First, the well-known comparative statics of option pricing provide an alternative and immediate proof for many of Stiglitz and Weiss' results. Secondly, the framework accommodates several theoretical extensions to the basic results. Finally, the approach allows an assessment of the empirical significance of equilibrium credit rationing, since the model is easily parameterised. Simulations of the model suggest that rationing is unlikely to be significant at the collateral levels observed in the U.S and U.K. small commercial loan market
Long-term liability and the choice of liquidation
No full textThis paper argues that the combination of limited liability, the productive characteristics of many polluting industries, and the long-term nature of certain environmental damages, presents shareholders of limited liability corporations with an incentive to liquidate their firm before large future liabilities are realised. A formal model is developed, and then parameterised, to indicate the types of firms that will engage in this (and other) behaviour; concrete examples of each type are given. The policy implications are explored, concentrating on the need for separate, ex ante regulation to address the distinct problem of strategic liquidation
The neural signatures of causal inferences: a preliminary computational account of brain-imaging and behavioral data
No full textNon-bargaining in the shadow of the law
No full textAnalysis of data on civil litigation claims reveals two puzzles. First, despite the large costs of nonbargaining, only a fraction of claims receive more than one offer before settlement or adjudication. Second, the size of this fraction seems to depend on the type of parties involved in the claim. This paper develops a theory to explain these observations. The basic model describes bargaining between a risk-neutral defendant who plays the litigation game repeatedly and a risk-averse plaintiff who is involved in litigation only once. (This set-up, it is argued, is a good description of the parties in many civil litigation cases.) The paper shows that (under certain circumstances) the defendant will commit to withholding offers partially: In a two-period game, the optimal strategy is to make a second offer to the plaintiff with a probability between zero and one. The dependence of this probability on the characteristics of the plaintiff is described. A unique data set, collected from the files of the Taxing Masters in the United Kingdom, allows specific testing of the model’s predictions. Regression analysis and comparison with U.S. studies provide support for the theory
Internet service classes under competition
No full textThis paper analyzes competition between two Internet service providers (ISPs), either or both of which may choose to offer multiple service classes. In the model analyzed, a social planner who maximizes the total benefit from network usage and a profit maximizing monopolist will both form multiple service classes; but two networks competing to maximize profits will not. The reason is that a competition effect always outweighs a segmentation effect. Networks wish to offer multiple service classes in order to increase user benefits and hence charge higher prices. In doing so, however, they effectively increase the number of points in the service quality range at which they compete. Consequently, in any equilibrium competitive outcome, both ISPs offer a single service class. The analysis has particular implications for the Paris Metro pricing (PMP) proposal, which is considered in depth in this paper, since it suggests that PMP may not be viable under competitio
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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