A “Local” Model of the Firm: Sticky prices and the Phillips Curve

Assume a firm concerns itself exclusively with local shocks (copious citations including Lucas 1972 and Bomhoff 1983 validate that this type of assumption may be reasonable). Changes in a firm's production policy should occur when the actual demand in a period Dt suggests that the underlying demand function has shifted from expected demand E(Dt). Since firms face uncertainty, this is non-trivial and they must find a way to determining (given information from a single, current period) whether or not the underlying demand has changed or whether the firm has simply obtained a draw from its expected demand distribution. In a simplified model, a firm can use a concept similar to a Statistical Hypothesis Test on E(Dt) = Dt to come to this conclusion. Rather than select an arbitrary confidence threshold (alpha), a firm can reverse the process and use the "marginal" alpha (where the hypothesis is just rejected or accepted) as its confidence that the mean has changed, allowing it to update its expectations to E(Dt+1) = (1-a) * E(Dt) + a * (Dt) and price accordingly. By weighting new demand information using this "confidence factor," the model introduces significant and persistent rigidity around NAIRU/equilibrium. This model is also powerful because it explains the qualified success of threshold like behaivor in classical "menu cost" theories (as the threshold reflects the classic hypothesis test strategy), behavior similar to a learning model (via the weighted introduction of new data) and seeming information lags (via the low confidence in new information immediately after shifts), among others.phillips curve

Repetitive control of electrical stimulation for tremor suppression

Tremor is a rapid uncontrollable back-and-forth movement of a body part often seen in patients with neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease. This debilitating oscillation can be suppressed by applying functional electrical stimulation (FES) within a closedloop control system. However current implementations use classical control methods and have proved capable of only limited performance. This paper develops a novel application of repetitive control (RC) that exploits the capability of learning from experience to enable complete suppression of the tremor. The proposed control structure is applied to suppress tremor at the wrist via FES regulated co-contraction of wrist extensors/flexors. Experimental evaluation is performed using a validated wristrig and results are compared against classical feedback control designs to establish the efficacy of the approach

The New Keynsesian Economics and the Output-Inflation Trade-off

macroeconomics, New Keynsesian Economics, Output-Inflation Trade-off

The continuing diversity of corporate governance: Theories of convergence and variety

This paper examines the continuing diversity of corporate governance by critically analysing the impelling financial forces for convergence, and the vitality of institutional differentiation. Competing theories of convergence and diversity are examined through the disciplinary perspectives of history and politics, law and regulation, culture, and institutional complementarities. The paper challenges whether a universal corporate governance system is practical, necessary or desirable. The increasingly recognized premium for governance is considered in the context of a globalizing economy. The implications of the deregulation of finance and the globalization of capital markets are examined, with a focus on the growth of equity markets and the dominant position of the Anglo-American stock exchanges. The convergence thesis is debated, examining different theoretical arguments for and against the inevitability of convergence of corporate governance systems and the resilience of cultural and institutional diversity. This institutional diversity serves a productive purpose in contributing innovation and differentiation in products and services. The global financial crisis has shaken the institutional foundations of all advanced economies, and regulatory and market settlements are still occurring. In this context of forces impelling dramatic change yet encountering powerful impulses towards institutional continuity, the future direction of corporate governance trends is questioned, with the likelihood of greater complexity rather than uniformity emerging from current developments. While capital markets have acquired an apparently irresistible force in the world economy, it still appears that institutional complementarities at the national and regional level represent immovable governance objects. The issues are more complex than convergence theorists suggest, and while some degree of market convergence might be occurring, simultaneously there is the creation of greater divergence within national regimes of corporate governance

Caffeine and Human Perception of Time

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of caffeine on several components of time perception in an attention-demanding task. Review of the current literature shows that the rhythm of the brain\u27s internal clock, controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is believed to mediate the perception of short durations, is sensitive to a variety of stimuli including stimulants. This study expands on previous research on the effect of caffeine on prospective time estimation by having participants estimate multiple short durations while completing a cognitively complex time estimation task involving math. The study included a moderate dose caffeine condition and a placebo condition. Previous findings have shown that a moderate dose of caffeine, coupled with a relatively complex information-processing task, limits individuals’ ability to allocate cognitive resources necessary for accessing the internal clock (Gruber & Block, 2005). It was hypothesized that with a more complex cognitive task, participants given caffeine would make shorter temporal predictions than those given a placebo. Contrary to expectations, the results suggest that a 200mg dose of caffeine does not have an impact on an individual’s ability to accurately estimate short durations of time while completing an attention-demanding task. Limitations to these findings are discussed and although the results were counter to the hypotheses, they help to provide scaffolding for future research investigating similar effects of caffeine on the ability to accurately estimate durations of time

Neurophysiology

Contains reports on seven research projects.National Institutes of Health (Grant 5 RO1 EY01149-02)Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. (Grant)National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 TO1 EY00090-01

How do Securities Laws Influence Affect, Happiness, & Trust?

This Article advocates that securities regulators promulgate rules based upon taking into consideration their impacts upon investors\u27 and others\u27 affect, happiness, and trust. Examples of these impacts are consumer optimism, financial stress, anxiety over how thoroughly securities regulators deliberate over proposed rules, investor confidence in securities disclosures, market exuberance, social moods, and subjective well-being. These variables affect and are affected by traditional financial variables, such as consumer debt, expenditures, and wealth; corporate investment; initial public offerings; and securities market demand, liquidity, prices, supply, and volume. This Article proposes that securities regulators can and should evaluate rules based upon measures of affect, happiness, and trust in addition to standard observable financial variables. This Article concludes that the organic statutes of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission are indeterminate despite mandating that federal securities laws consider efficiency among other goals. This Article illustrates analysis of affective impacts of these financial regulatory policies: mandatory securities disclosures; gun-jumping rules for publicly registered offerings; financial education or literacy campaigns; statutory or judicial default rules and menus; and continual reassessment and revision of rules. These regulatory policies impact and are impacted by investors\u27 and other people\u27s affect, happiness, and trust. Thus, securities regulators can and should evaluate such affective impacts to design effective legal policy

Digital user's decision journey

The landscape of the Internet is continually evolving. This creates huge opportunities for different industries to optimize vital channels online, resulting in various-forms of new Internet services. As a result, digital users are interacting with many digital systems and they are exhibiting dynamic behaviors. Their shopping behaviors are drastically different today than it used to be, with offline and online shopping interacting with each other. They have many channels to access online media but their consumption patterns on different channels are quite different. They do philanthropy online to help others but their heterogeneous motivations and different fundraising campaigns leads to distinct path-to-contribution. Understanding the digital user’s decision making process behind their dynamic behaviors is critical as they interact with various digital systems for the firms to improve user experience and improve their bottom line. In this thesis, I study digital users’ decision journeys and the corresponding digital technology firms’ strategies using inter-disciplinary approaches that combine econometrics, economic structural modeling and machine learning. The uncovered decision journey not only offer empirical managerial insights but also provide guideline for introducing intervention to better serve digital users

A “Local” Model of the Firm: Sticky prices and the Phillips Curve

Assume a firm concerns itself exclusively with local shocks (copious citations including Lucas 1972 and Bomhoff 1983 validate that this type of assumption may be reasonable). Changes in a firm's production policy should occur when the actual demand in a period Dt suggests that the underlying demand function has shifted from expected demand E(Dt). Since firms face uncertainty, this is non-trivial and they must find a way to determining (given information from a single, current period) whether or not the underlying demand has changed or whether the firm has simply obtained a draw from its expected demand distribution. In a simplified model, a firm can use a concept similar to a Statistical Hypothesis Test on E(Dt) = Dt to come to this conclusion. Rather than select an arbitrary confidence threshold (alpha), a firm can reverse the process and use the "marginal" alpha (where the hypothesis is just rejected or accepted) as its confidence that the mean has changed, allowing it to update its expectations to E(Dt+1) = (1-a) * E(Dt) + a * (Dt) and price accordingly. By weighting new demand information using this "confidence factor," the model introduces significant and persistent rigidity around NAIRU/equilibrium. This model is also powerful because it explains the qualified success of threshold like behaivor in classical "menu cost" theories (as the threshold reflects the classic hypothesis test strategy), behavior similar to a learning model (via the weighted introduction of new data) and seeming information lags (via the low confidence in new information immediately after shifts), among others