Search results for "Monetary economics"

The Separating Role of Collateral Requirements in Credit Markets with Asymmetric Information

2001

In this paper we test Bester's (1985, 1987) prediction about the separating role of contracts that involve both interest rates and collateral requirements in credit markets. To test this prediction we use data from natural credit markets and controlled experiments. Using a sample of credits to small and medium size firms in Valencia, Spain, we relate two different types of contracts with the ex post risk type of the borrower and other relevant variables. We then design two incentive compatible contracts and analyze decisions under two different experimental treatments, one with moral hazard. Our empirical results confirm that borrowers of ex post lower risk choose contracts with higher coll…

Estimating the size of the loan sharking market in Italy

2014

In the current economic crisis, the risk is so high that entrepreneurs, commercial activities and even families may turn to the illegal market to obtain liquidity. This article proposes an estimate of the size of the usury credit market in Italy. The estimate is based on the assumption, provided by Guiso1, that before coming to a moneylender the borrower seeks to obtain credit through official channels. The results of our estimates confirm the seriousness of the problem, but provide much lower data than those reported periodically by the media. It is estimated that 372,000 economic activities may have been potentially involved in the usury market in 2012. The volume of loans disbursed in th…

Unveiling the Antecedents of International Diversification: An Agency Theory Approach

2014

While various studies have developed hypotheses about the antecedents of international diversification drawing mainly on the resource-based view, the behavioral theory of the firm, and the transaction costs literature, we advance our understanding by investigating the explanatory power of agency costs of free cash flow arguments. Using a sample panel of 167 Italian firms longitudinally evaluated during the 1980-2010 period, this study tests whether the firm’s choice to spread operations in multiple foreign countries is conditioned by excess of free cash flow and debt, especially in firm-contexts where agency problems are exacerbated by managers or large shareholders’ opportunism. We find th…

On the Macroeconomic Effect of Extortion: An Agent-Based Approach

2021

This work proposes an agent-based approach to study the effect of extortion on macroeconomic aggregates, despite the fact that there is little data on this criminal activity given its hidden nature. We develop a Bottom-up Adaptive Macroeconomics (BAM) model that simulates a healthy economy, including a moderate inflation and a reasonable unemployment rate, and test the impact of extortion on various macroeconomic signals. The BAM model defines the usual interactions among workers, firms and banks in labour, goods and credit markets. Subsequently, crime is introduced by defining the propensity of the poorest workers to become extortionists, as well as the efficiency of the police in terms of…

Director Compensation Incentives and Acquisition Outcomes

2018

The principal objective of this chapter is to investigate the relation between director compensation structure and shareholder interests in the context of acquisitions. Our evidence suggests that acquirer firms that compensate their directors with a higher proportion of incentive-based compensation have significantly higher stock returns around the announcement. An increase in director equity-based pay results in a lower probability of value-destroying acquisitions and a lower acquisition premium for targets. We further find that acquirers with higher equity-based pay exhibit greater improvements in stock price and operating performance following acquisitions.

Fiscal Adjustment and Business Cycle Synchronization

2013

Using a panel of annual data for 20 countries we show that synchronized fiscal consolidation (stimulus) programmes in different countries make their business cycles more closely linked, especially in the case of fiscal adjustments lasting 2 or 3 years. We also find: (i) little evidence of decoupling when an inflation targeting regime is unilaterally adopted; (ii) an increase in business cycle synchronization when countries fix their exchange rates and become members of a monetary union; (iii) a positive effect of bilateral trade on the synchronization of business cycles.

JABB: taking stock after 8 years activity

2011

Do sovereign ratings cause instability in cross-border emerging CDS markets?

2020

We analyse the cross-border transmission effect of credit ratings on sovereign CDSs covering a broad sample of emerging countries during the period 2004 to 2015. This study differentiates between the spillover and competition effects between and within geographical areas of emerging countries. We find substantial evidence of cross-border effects with asymmetric responses to upgrades and downgrades. The market reaction differs across regions, reflecting how the international and local impact of rating events are due to different types of effects. At the international portfolio level, the competitive effect is dominant over the spillover effect. Negative events in Asia benefit Africa (which i…

Predictable Dynamics in the Small Stock Premium

2014

We start this paper by providing a detailed study of how the mean monthly return on the Small-Minus-Big (SMB) Fama-French factor is affected by the January effect and the stock market return during the preceding month and preceding calendar year. We then proceed to building a predictive model for the monthly SMB factor return that incorporates the January effect and the dependence on both the market return during the preceding month and preceding calendar year. Our findings suggest that a positive small stock premium appears mainly during the years following the years with a negative return on the market as the result of a delayed and stronger reaction of small stocks to good news and a str…

Structural change in a Ricardian world economy: The role of extensive rent

2019

Abstract We study an implication of the Ricardian theory of differential extensive rent in a free trade regime. To this effect we develop a Ricardian two country two commodity open economy model. We assume that, unlike labour, land is heterogeneous both within and across countries and that the ratio of high to low quality land is different among the trading countries. By means of a numerical example we show that as the process of worldwide capital accumulation (and population growth) proceeds an industrial country may find it convenient to increase its domestic corn production and even reverse completely the pattern of its imports and exports.