The Thick Market Effect on Local Unemployment Rate Fluctuations

This paper studies how the thick market effect influences local unemployment rate fluctuations. The paper presents a model to demonstrate that the average matching quality improves as the number of workers and firms increases. Unemployed workers accumulate in a city until the local labor market reaches a critical minimum size, which leads to cyclical fluctuations in the local unemployment rates. Since larger cities attain the critical market size more frequently, they have shorter unemployment cycles, lower peak unemployment rates, and lower mean unemployment rates. Our empirical tests are consisten with the predictions of the model. In particular, we find that an increase of two standard deviations in city size shortens the unemployment cycles by about 0.72 months, lowers the peak unemployment rates by 0.33 percentage points, and lowers the mean unemployment rates by 0.16 percentage points.

Discrete Boltzmann modeling of multiphase flows: hydrodynamic and thermodynamic non-equilibrium effects

A discrete Boltzmann model (DBM) is developed to investigate the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic non-equilibrium (TNE) effects in phase separation processes. The interparticle force drives changes and the gradient force, induced by gradients of macroscopic quantities, opposes them. In this paper, we investigate the interplay between them by providing detailed inspection of various non-equilibrium observables. Based on the TNE features, we define a TNE strength which roughly estimates the deviation amplitude from the thermodynamic equilibrium. The time evolution of the TNE intensity provides a convenient and efficient physical criterion to discriminate the stages of the spinodal decomposition and domain growth. Via the DBM simulation and this criterion, we quantitatively study the effects of latent heat and surface tension on phase separation. It is found that, the TNE strength attains its maximum at the end of the spinodal decomposition stage, and it decreases when the latent heat increases from zero. The surface tension effects are threefold, to prolong the duration of the spinodal decomposition stage, decrease the maximum TNE intensity, and accelerate the speed of the domain growth stage.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Personal Bankruptcy: Reconciling Adverse Events and Strategic Timing Hypotheses Using Heterogeneity in Filing Types

The strategic timing and adverse events hypotheses of personal bankruptcy have received particular attention. Existing research focuses on proving or disproving either hypothesis, using a strict interpretation of the role of financial benefit in the filing decision. Using a more realistic framework in which financial benefit may affect the filing decision in both hypotheses, we show that endogeneity of financial benefit is a distinguishing factor between the two hypotheses. Using two different datasets, we show that the endogeneity test favors the adverse events hypothesis. Extending the analysis to allow for both types, we find evidence of heterogeneity in filing types, consistent with both hypotheses. On average, approximately 16 percent of households are more likely to behave as strategic types and 84 percent as adverse events types. Several implications of these results are explored.Consumer bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy, adverse events, strategic timing