Consumer Switching Costs and Private Information

We consider a standard model of consumer switching costs with demand uncertainty where firms observe private information about demand. Given this private information, each firm forms beliefs over different demand realizations as well as beliefs over the other firm's information. The main result here is that in the first period, if firms observe information suggesting that future demand is likely to be high, they will price aggressively, sacrificing current profits for higher market share and the expectation of higher future profits.consumer switching costs, oligopoly theory, private information

How well are the states of the Eighth Federal Reserve District prepared for the next recession?

Economic downturns often force state policymakers to enact sizable tax increases or spending cuts to close budget shortfalls. In this paper the authors make use of a Markov-switching regression model to empirically describe the expansions and contractions in the states of the Eighth Federal Reserve District. They use the estimated parameters from the switching regressions to form probability distributions of the revenue shortfalls states are likely to encounter in future slowdowns. This allows them to estimate the probability that each state's projected fiscal-year-end balances will be sufficient to offset the fiscal stress from a recession.Business cycles ; Recessions ; Federal Reserve District, 8th

Weathering the Next Recession: How Prepared Are US States?

Rainy day funds are one tool that most US states use to help mitigate the fiscal stress caused by economic slowdowns that reduce state government revenue. Past research by Wagner and Elder (2007b) uses a switching regression to estimate parameters in order to form a distribution of potential budget shortfalls for each state. This paper updates those results to include post–Great Recession data. A comparison of this distribution to the actual amount of savings that states have accumulated allows an assessment of how prepared each state is for an economic downturn and the resulting decline in tax revenues.

Criação e validação de uma base de dados com elementos do Transito brasileiro para Veículos autônomos / Creation and validation of a database with elements of the Brazilian traffic to Automobile vehicles

A aprendizagem de máquina vem possibilitando o surgimento de novos produtos e recursos revolucionários, como veículos autônomos. Graças às redes neurais artificiais aplicadas à visão computacional, os sistemas conseguem reconhecer padrões de forma próxima à visão humana.  Para o treinamento de redes neurais profundas (Deep Learning) é necessária uma base de dados numerosa para a compreensão de padrões visuais.  Visando contribuir com as aplicações para veículos autônomos, este trabalho cria uma base de dados com alguns elementos do trânsito brasileiro. Para a validação e treinamento da base de dados foi utilizada a rede Solo- v3 e realizados testes em diversos cenários, avaliando critérios como a quantidade de objetos detectados e a capacidade de identificação correta do tipo de objeto.  Como resultado, para o ambiente virtual houve detecções de 21,5% de objetos, com 83% classificados corretamente. E para os cenários reais houve detecções de 61,8% de objetos, com 88% classificados corretamente

Investment effects of departures from governmental present-value budget balance

The paper investigates whether departures from government borrowing constraints affect the relationship between fiscal-policy innovations and changes in the investment level. 'Break points', or apparent departures from present-value budget balance, are then identified. Next, the investment-deficit relationship is examined prior to and following identified break points in an effort to detect potential changes in behaviour. The investment-deficit relationship is quantified by examining posterior coverage bounds of impulse response functions. Britain appears to undergo such a break around 1973. Data from this country suggest that significantly more crowding out occurred following the identified breaks: in contrast, data from other comparison countries that do not appear to have experienced breaks indicate stable investment-deficit relationships.

Consumer Switching Costs and Private Information

We consider a standard model of consumer switching costs with demand uncertainty where firms observe private information about demand. Given this private information, each firm forms beliefs over di#erent demand realizations as well as beliefs over the other firm's information. The main result here is that in the first period, if firms observe information suggesting that future demand is likely to be high, they will price aggressively, sacrificing current profits for higher market share and the expectation of higher future profits