Habits in Consumption, Transactions Learning And Economic Growth.

This paper presents a model of endogenous growth in the presence of habit formation in consumption. We argue that in addition to the traditional disutility effects of habitual consumption, the past history of consumption represents a past record of transactions as well. As a result, the knowledge acquired in the process of past consumption leads to efficiency gains in allocating time to other activities. In particular, the investment technology in broad household capital can be seen as benefiting from the habitual consumption knowledge, while being subject to the costly new consumption pathways learning. These learning-by-consuming effects imply a faster speed of convergence to the steady state growth rate in consumption and a higher steady state ratio of capital to habits. Alternatively our model allows for the case where new consumption is associated with the accumulation of broad capital, as is consistent with the case where consumption goods can also be used in production. In this case convergence to steady state growth rate is slower.

Uncertainty and Risk:From Entitlement Theory of Justice to Inalienable Rights

The following paper presents a set of philosophical arguments that extend the standard set of property rights under the classical libertarian perspective to include the individual rights to ownership, management and transfer of risk and uncertainty. The paper shows that an extension of property rights, proposed below, strengthens the libertarian arguments concerning the sufficiency of the minimal state for achievement of liberty and justice. However, as argued in the paper, property rights extension alone does not support the argument in favour of the minimal state as a necessary condition for justice. To achieve such argument, we extend the argument concerning the inalienable rights to include the rights to risk and uncertainty. We show that in presence of such rights, the infamous Nozickian assertion concerning the potential implications of continuity of the space of rationality with regards to its role in separation of the human domain from that of the other biological species, no longer holds. In addition we establish that incorporation of individual rights over risk and uncertainty into the set inalienable rights allows for resolution of the Hansson’s causal dilution problem.

Exogenous Liquidity Supply in Presence of Repudiation Risk and Private Asset RecoveryInternational Financial Integration

Current paper proposes an extension of the seminal model by Holmstrom Tirole (1997) of the exogenous liquidity supply in presence of moral hazard to the case that includes private asset recovery under the limited liability of the entrepreneur. In our model partial private recovery applies to the financial assets that are considered to be sunk by the investors. In this context, a distressed firm seeking second round financing for its investment project is able, within a limited range of shocks, to increase its private payoff in case of the project default. As the result, unable to use these funds to raise additional liquidity, the distressed firms face a reduced range of acceptable shock values relative to Holmstrom Tirole set up. At the same time, domestic securities markets, even in absence of aggregate uncertainty, are shown to hold insufficient liquidity. As the result, distressed firms individually are unable to counter the shocks by holding claims against other firms even in case of the financial intermediation.

Project Contingent Repudiation Risk in the Model of North-South Lending

Present research proposes the extension of the Gertler-Rogoff-Lane model of international lending under the risk of repudiation with moral hazard to encompass the possibility of the project contingency in the repudiation risk itself. By linking the level of repudiation risk to the size of the project we show that investment projects undertaken can be biased in a direction favouring larger projects. Alternatively, we show that smaller investors are required in the marketplace, under certain conditions, to provide greater guarantees or higher collateral in order to obtain funds needed for investmen

Hacking the market: Systemic contagion from cybersecurity breaches

The average stock market reaction in the 10 days after a cyber attack has become increasingly negative, write Constantin Gurdgiev and Shaen Corbe

Fractal dynamics and wavelet analysis: deep volatility and return properties of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple

The substantial volatility and growth in cryptocurrencies valuations between 2009 and the end of 2017 strongly suggest that both long memory and price volatility and return spillovers should be present in these assets’ dynamics. To date, literature on the major cryptocurrencies price processes does not address jointly and comprehensively their fractal properties, long memory and wavelet analysis, that could robustly confirm the presence of fractal dynamics in their prices, and confirm or deny the validity of the Fractal Market Hypothesis as being applicable to the cryptocurrencies. This research shows that Bitcoin prices exhibit long term memory, although its trend has been reducing overtime. In fact, assessing Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple across the period between 2016 and 2017, focusing solely on the period prior to the crash of 2018, we can conclude that Bitcoin was better described by a random walk, showing signs of markets maturity emerging, in contrast, other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Ripple present evidence of a growing underlying memory behaviour

What determines the decision to apply for credit? Evidence for Eurozone SMEs

This study examines the decision by firm owners to apply, or not, for intermediated debt. Based on a sample of SMEs in 9 European countries over the period 2009-2012, we examine firm characteristics, institutional and cultural factors, along with time, industry and year variables. We focus our analyses in two distinct groups of firms, those that applied for debt and firms that did not apply for fear of rejection. We find evidence that firm age, size and existing debt capacity matter, as do bank and liquidity conditions. We provide evidence for the first time that national culture correlates to the decisions to apply or not for credit. Policy implications of these findings are discussed

The Irish economy: Three strikes and you’re out?

We examine the three interlinked Irish crises : the competitiveness, fiscal and banking crises, showing how all three combined to lay a lethal trap for Ireland. Starting from a point of economic balance, a series of poor government decisions led to the country once dubbed the “Celtic tiger” become the second eurozone state after Greece to seek a bailout, with the EFSF/IMF intervening in late 2010

High Performance Computing Instrumentation and Research Productivity in U.S. Universities

This paper studies the relationship between investments in High-Performance Computing (HPC) instrumentation and research competitiveness. Measures of institutional HPC investment are computed from data that is readily available from the Top 500 list, a list that has been published twice a year since 1993 that lists the fastest 500 computers in the world at that time. Institutions that are studied include US doctoral-granting institutions that fall into the very high or high research rankings according to the Carnegie Foundation classifications and additional institutions that have had entries in the Top 500 list. Research competitiveness is derived from federal funding data, compilations of scholarly publications, and institutional rankings. Correlation and Two Stage Least Square regression is used to analyze the research-related returns to investment in HPC. Two models are examined and give results that are both economically and statistically significant. Appearance on the Top 500 list is associated with a contemporaneous increase in NSF funding levels as well as a contemporaneous increase in the number of publications. The rate of depreciation in returns to HPC is rapid. The conclusion is that consistent investments in HPC at even modest levels are strongly correlated to research competitiveness