On the "Hirshleifer effect'' of unscheduled monetary policy announcements.

When monetary policy announcements are expected to occur at scheduled dates, the event of an unscheduled announcement often "surprises" financial markets. However, if the information provider knows the future policy beforehand, he might be induced to anticipate the release of information without waiting for the next scheduled date, on the assumption that better informed traders will be able to attain superior equilibria. On October 15,.1998, January 3 and April 18, 2001 the chairman of U.S. Fed announced a half point interest rate cut well before the next scheduled meeting. The real surprise for the markets was the timing, not the content, of the announcement. In this paper we look at the volume of trade in interest rate futures before these three dates and compare it to the volume of trade before scheduled meetings. We argue that the wrong timing of policy announcements might involve an "Hirshleifer effect" and prevent a significant volumes of securities to transact for hedging purposes.

Anxiety and Performance: An Endogenous Learning-by-doing Model

In this article, we show that a standard economic model, the endogenous learning-by-doing model, captures several major themes from the anxiety literature in psychology. In our model, anxiety is a fully endogenous construct that can be separated naturally into its cognitive and physiological components. As such, our results are directly comparable with hypotheses and evidence from psychology. We show that anxiety can serve a motivating function, which suggests potential applications in the principal-agent literature.Diamond Paradox, price dispersion, search, strategic complementarities

Agency and Anxiety

In this paper, we introduce the psychological concept of anxiety into agency theory. An important benchmark in the anxiety literature is the inverted-U hypothesis which states that an increase in anxiety improves performance when anxiety is low but reduces it when anxiety is high. We consider a version of the Holmstrom-Milgrom linear principal-agent model where the agent conforms to the inverted-U hypothesis and investigate the nature of the optimal linear contract. We find that although high-powered incentives can be demotivational, a profit-maximizing principal never offers them. In contrast, the principal may optimally engage in a demotivational level of monitoring. Moreover, since risk can be motivational, the principal may refrain from eliminating it even when monitoring is costless. Indeed, the principal may even add pure noise to the contract in order to motivate the agent, contradicting the informativeness principle. Finally, incentives and monitoring can be strategic substitutes or complements in our model.

Knutson ideals

In this thesis, we begin the study of a new class of ideals, called Knutson ideals, which has several useful connections with different aspects of commutative algebra, such as $F$-singularity theory, Gr"obner basis theory, determinantal rings theory and combinatorics. First, we show that the main properties that this class has in polynomial rings over F_p are preserved when one introduces the definition of Knutson ideal also in polynomial rings over fields of characteristic zero. Then, we discuss the case of determinantal ideals of Hankel matrices and generic matrices, proving that both of them are Knutson ideals. In particular, in positive characteristic, they all define F-pure rings. In the case of Hankel matrices, we also give a characterization of all the ideals belonging to the family. Interestingly, it turns out that they are all Cohen-Macaulay ideals. In the case of generic matrices, we obtain a useful result about Gr"obner bases of certain sums of determinantal ideals. More specifically, given I = I_1 +...+ I_k a sum of ideals of minors on adjacent columns or rows, we prove that the union of the Gr"obner bases of the I_j's is a Gr"obner basis of I. Lastly, we focus on the connection between Knutson ideals and binomial edge ideals associated to weakly closed graphs. Inspired by Matsuda's work on weakly closed graphs, we show that their binomial edge ideals are Knutson ideals (in particular, they are F-pure in positive characteristic). Furthermore, we conjecture that the converse is still true, i.e, the binomial edge ideals in C_f are exactly those associated to weakly closed graphs

Oral burning with dysphagia and weight loss

Fibromyalgia is a disorder characterized by an abnormal pain regulation. Widespread pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance are the prevalent symptoms. When unusual symptoms are overbearingly predominant at clinical presentation, the diagnosis becomes challenging. We report on the case of a patient with fibromyalgia, who presented with dysphagia, odynophagia, and glossodynia as prevalent symptoms. Difficulty in swallowing gradually developed over a month prior hospitalization, and worsened progressively so that nourishment and fluid intake were impeded. Because anemia with mild iron deficiency was found, esophagogastroduodenoscopy was performed, but no lesions were seen in the upper digestive tract. Levels of zinc and vitamin B12 were normal. Intense pain at pelvis and the inferior limbs, which was at a first glance referred to as osteoarthrosis, associated with oral symptoms and feeling of being in the clouds allowed us to diagnose fibromyalgia. Amitriptyline was used, with relief of symptoms. Although oropharyngeal symptoms were occasionally reported in fibromyalgia, they are often overlooked. The present case, therefore, testifies the need to consider the diagnosis of fibromyalgia when the patient presents with such symptoms that cannot be readily explained on other grounds

Effects of political-economic integration and trade liberalization on exports of Italian Quality Wines Produced in Determined Regions (QWPDR)

The aim of this work is to explain the magnitude of the trade flows for high quality wine from Italy to its main importing countries. This objective has been reached by establishing an appropriate econometric model derived from an extended form of the “Gravity Model”. This model has been broadly applied to the analysis of international trade because it provides robust estimates. The results obtained and the model itself are useful in forecasting potential trends in the exportation of high quality Italian wines. In particular, these estimates give a quantitative evaluation of the export gains that could result from the enlargement of the EU and from an increasing liberalization in international trade. Moreover, it is possible to identify the growing markets where Italian ventures could exploit certain promotional and communication strategies.Italy, Exports, QWPDR, Integration, Gravity Model

Acceleration waves and oscillating gas bubbles modelled by rational extended thermodynamics

The study of acceleration waves for a rarefied polyatomic gas is carried out in planar, cylindrical and spherical geometry referring to the rational extended thermodynamics theory with 14 moments. The case of a rarefied monatomic gas is determined as a limit case, and the role of geometry and molecular degrees of freedom is investigated. In addition, the behaviour of an acceleration wave travelling inside an oscillating gas bubble is modelled by the 14-moment PDE system under adiabatic condition. We show that dissipation combined with hyperbolicity tends to inhibit shock formation, and that the dynamic pressure cannot be zero inside the oscillating bubble. This fact can produce observable effects even in the Navier–Stokes approximation, if the gas exhibits high bulk viscosity

On the convergence of a Block-Coordinate Incremental Gradient method

In this paper, we study the convergence of a block-coordinate incremental gradient method. Under some specific assumptions on the objective function, we prove that the block-coordinate incremental gradient method can be seen as a gradient method with errors and convergence can be proved by showing the error at each iteration satisfies some standard conditions. Thus, we can prove convergence towards stationary points when the block incremental gradient method is coupled with a diminishing stepsize and towards an epsilon-approximate solution when a bounded away from zero stepsize is employed

Agritourism flows to Italy: an analysis of determinants using the gravity model approach

Tourism represents one of the most important income sources for Italy. In recent years, apart from “traditional” destinations, tourism supply is widely changing in order to satisfy the customers “love for variety” and valorise marginal resources, then new formulas are emerging (e.g. agritourism). This work aims to elaborate and estimate an econometric model able to adequately explain the size of agritourists flows to Italy from main partner countries using the gravity model approach that has been broadly applied to the analysis of international flows. In this work, the “basic” model has been enlarged and improved with the introduction of other explicative variables. The results has allowed to confirm empirical validity of the gravity model in studying international flows of any nature. Furthermore, the estimated econometric model represents a useful analytical instrument to describe, and, eventually, predict demand of foreign visitors for agritourist vacations in Italy.Gravity Model, Agritourism, Rural tourism, Tourism flows, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,