Two changes have ushered in a new era of analyzing the complex and interdependent world surrounding us. One is related to the increased influx of data, furnishing the raw material for this revolution that is now starting to impact economic thinking. The second change is due to a subtler reason: a paradigm shift in the analysis of complex systems.
Several graphical methods for testing univariate composite normality from an i.i.d. sample are presented. They are endowed with correct simultaneous error bounds and yield size-correct tests. As all are based on the empirical CDF, they are also consistent for all alternatives. For one test, called the modified stabilized probability test, or MSP, a highly simplified computational method is derived, which delivers the test statistic and also a highly accurate p-value approximation, essentially instantaneously. The MSP test is demonstrated to have higher power against asymmetric alternatives than the well-known and powerful Jarque-Bera test. A further size-correct test, based on combining two test statistics, is shown to have yet higher power. The methodology employed is fully general and can be applied to any i.i.d. univariate continuous distribution setting.
We develop a simple integration of banks into the Solow model. The objective is to provide a tractable benchmark for analyzing the long-term impact of crises on economic activities and growth. A fraction of firms have to rely on banks for financing their investments while banks face themselves an endogenous leverage constraint. Informed lending by banks and uninformed lending through capital markets spur capital accumulation. The ensuing coupled accumulation rules for household wealth and bank equity yield a uniquely determined steady state. We highlight three properties when shocks to wealth, productivity or trust affect the economy. First, typically bond and loan financing react in opposite directions to such shocks. Second, negative temporary shocks to household wealth (financial crisis) or negative sectoral production shocks can surprisingly cause persistent booms of banking and even of the entire economy -- after an initial bust. Third, shocks to bank equity (banking crisis), however, lead to large and persistent downturns associated with high output losses.
"Wer Moral hat, geht zur Bank." Wirtschaftsnobelpreisträger Robert Shiller meint dies ernst: Jede menschliche Tätigkeit von Bedeutung muss finanziert werden, und man kann wenig Gutes für die Welt im Alleingang erreichen.
This chapter combines recent findings from the empirical banking literature with established insights from studies of banking competition and regulation. It starts with a concise overview and assessment of the different methodological approaches taken to address banking competition. While market structure indicators are readily available, they may not be overly informative about the competitive conditions in banking markets. The literature has focused to date on “non-market structure” indicators such as the Panzar-Rosse H-statistic, the Lerner index, and the Boone indicator. The chapter then structures a discussion on the empirical findings based upon a framework that finds its roots in the different theories of financial intermediation. Many other specific approaches to infer banking competition are discussed, in particular, the impact that regulation and information-sharing between banks may have on banking competition.
Die Schweiz geht zu einer neuen Wirtschaftsform über. Weiss (freie Marktwirtschaft) oder Schwarz (reine Staatswirtschaft) war zwar nie, dem Bundesrat schwebt aber eine besondere Schattierung von Dunkelgrau vor. Er sieht die Unternehmen neu als verlängerten Arm des Staates. «Der Bund erwartet von den Wirtschaftsakteuren, dass sie ihre gesellschaftliche Verantwortung wahrnehmen», heisst es in der Medienmitteilung zu einem am 1. April veröffentlichten Positionspapier.
Given a theoretical pricing model, an implied volatility can be extracted from an option’s market price. Given a set of options with the same maturity and a range of strike prices, it is possible to extract (an approximation to) the entire risk-neutral probability density without having to assume a theoretical pricing model. There are a variety of related methods to do this, but all are subject to certain problems, including the fact that the data never exist to allow full estimation of the tails. Some methods produce improper densities with negative portions. In this article, Ludwig introduces a neural network approach to extract risk-neutral densities from option prices, imposing only a small number of constraints, such as probabilities must be nonnegative and an option’s price must be above intrinsic value. The resulting densities are smooth and sensible, even for days that other approaches find extremely difficult to handle.
This article jointly analyses a behavioural and a cultural concept to explain household debt portfolio choice. The behavioural approach explores the role of time preferences on household debt maturity in a theoretical model and a numerical analysis. We derive a positive relationship between the long-term discount factor δ and the optimal maturity of household loans. The cultural approach examines whether national culture is a reasonable predictor for household debt maturity. We show that culture is an important factor for households’ borrowing decisions and has even more predictive power than time preferences. Countries with higher scores on the Hofstede dimension of long-term orientation tend to have shorter household debt maturity. Time preferences incur a primarily mediating role, because the effect of national culture on the borrowing decision is reduced, as the long-term discount factor δ increases.
