Abstract: A growing theoretical literature describes mechanisms whereby even predictable increases in the rate of inflation interfere with the ability of the financial sector to allocate resources effectively. This paper empirically assesses these predictions. The evidence indicates that there is a significant, and economically important, negative relationship between inflation and both banking sector development and equity market activity. Further, the relationship is nonlinear. As inflation rises, the marginal impact of inflation on banking lending activity and stock market development diminishes rapidly. Moreover, we find evidence of thresholds. For economies with inflation rates exceeding 15 percent, there is a discrete drop in financial sector performance. Finally, while the data indicate that more inflation is not matched by greater nominal equity returns in low-inflation countries, nominal stock returns move essentially onefor-one with marginal increases in inflation in high-inflation economies.

In online commerce, a buyer cannot directly examine the product and has to rely heavily on the reliability of the seller. In this setting, the reputation of the seller, together with any other information signals on the quality of the product, can play an important role in determining the buyer's willingness to pay for the good. However, while the impact of reputation on willingness to pay for homogeneous goods has been examined, its impact on heterogeneous goods is largely unknown. This paper examines the effects of the seller's reputation and information signals in online auctions, using U.S. silver Morgan dollar coins in almost uncirculated condition that are sold on eBay. The empirical results indicate that a seller's overall reputation has a positive and statistically significant impact on a buyer's willingness to pay in online auctions, an impact that is larger than for homogeneous goods. The results also indicate that negative comments about a seller have larger, and negative, impact on price.

this paper we investigate the empirical association between inflation and the functioning of an economy's financial system. We find substantial evidence that inflation is negatively correlated with financial market performance, and, in addition, we find that the relationship between inflation and financial development exhibits significant nonlinearities. In particular, economies with average rates of inflation exceeding certain thresholds have significantly less well-developed financial systems than do economies with inflation rates below these thresholds. Therefore, given the strong correlation between financial market development and economic growth, our results are quite consistent with the kinds of correlations found between inflation and long-run real performance.

Worker-generated claims-reporting moral hazard is said to occur when, in order to collect workers ’ compensation benefits, workers report on-the-job injuries that never occurred or that occurred off the job. Using newly available injury micro data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on all cases with days away from work, this article assesses the hypothesis that claims-reporting moral hazard is more likely to occur for hard-to-diagnose injuries than for easy-todiagnose cuts and fractures. Consistent with the hypothesis, multinomial logits indicate that an increase in the wage-replacement rate and a decrease in the benefit-waiting period increase the fraction of carpal tunnel syndrome cases relative to cuts and fractures, while a decrease in the waiting period increases back sprains relative to fractures. Contrary to the hypothesis that claimsreporting moral hazard differentially affects the timing of reported injuries, binomial logit estimates indicate that workers ’ compensation does not increase the probability of a Monday back sprain relative to a Monday cut or fracture. Rather, an increase in the wage-replacement rate and, possibly, worker choice of doctor increase the probability that an injury of any type is reported on Monday (or the day after a long weekend) relative to other regular workdays.

anonymous referee, and seminar participants at the University of Texas at Austin for helpful We compare CEOs of electric and gas utility firms to CEOs of unregulated firms. Utility CEOs tend to be older when appointed to office, have less prestigious educational backgrounds, and are more likely to have a legal background. Despite these differences, the evidence also indicates that the likelihood of utility CEO turnover is at least as sensitive to stock performance as the likelihood of turnover among CEOs of unregulated firms. We find no convincing evidence that utility CEOs stay in office longer than their unregulated counterparts, although they are less likely to be overtly forced from office or replaced by an executive from outside the firm. Finally, the evidence suggests that regulatory expertise is valued in the selection of new The impact of regulation on executive employment contracting has been the subject of considerable research. However, we still have a relatively incomplete picture of how regulation affects managerial labor markets. For example, while recent studies indicate that CEOs of regulated firms are typically paid less than their counterparts at unregulated firms and that the

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This paper presents an argument that rejects the conception of labor as a unitary political actor and the identification of social democratic governments as those that will promote the interests of labor. I divide labor into insiders, who enjoy employment protection, and outsiders, who do not, and reconceptualize electorally influential groups and their main policy interests accordingly. I first use some Eurobarometer data to show that my partisanship model’s assumptions about the preferences of insiders, outsiders and upscale groups are accurate. I then present a set of hypotheses regarding the effects of partisan differences on economic policies and test them in a pooled cross-section time-series analysis. The insider-outsider model explains why government partisanship influences some economic policies (those affecting employment protection) but not others (either anti-unemployment or anti-inflation ones). My results challenge previous findings relating partisanship differences to economic policies (as in works by Boix, Esping-Andersen and Garrett and Lange) and call into question the appropriateness of Alesina and Roubini’s rational partisanship model when analyzing OECD countries. 1 In the literature on the comparative political economy of advanced democracies there has been a widespread theoretical consensus about the goals different political parties have when in power. At least in principle, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor and conservative ones

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Noise reduction and estimation in multiple micro-electro-mechanical inertial systems This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article.

Although the role of irrationality in the trading choice has been extensively discussed in the literature, individual characteristics, which are equally crucial, have been neglected.. We investigated links between psychological- emotional factors and trading choices in a sample of non professional agents. Using a series of daily surveys over a six week period as well as introductive inventory surveys, we constructed measures of personality traits, behaviours and emotional moods and correlate these with subjects ’ financial choices. Our results show that happy individual with a positive view of the world and a regular sexual activity have a higher propensity to enter long positions and borrow money to improve their financial situation. 1