The debate over the potential procyclicality of bank capital requirements under Basel II has focused overwhelmingly on peak-to-trough variation in minimum regulatory requirements. In this paper, we re-examine the problem from the perspective of market discipline. First, we show that the marginal impact of introducing Basel II depends strongly on the extent to which market discipline leads banks to vary lending standards procyclically in the absence of binding regulation. Second, we evaluate policy options not only by their efficacy in dampening cyclicality in capital requirements, but equally by how well the information value of Basel II market disclosures is preserved.

This paper models interactions between a party with anticipatory emotions and a party who responds strategically to those emotions, a situation that is common in many health, political, employment, and personal settings. An “agent” has information with both decision-making value and emotional implications for an uninformed “principal” whose utility she wants to maximize. If she cannot directly reveal her information, to increase the principal's anticipatory utility she distorts instrumental decisions toward the action associated with good news. But because anticipatory utility derives from beliefs about instrumental outcomes, undistorted actions would yield higher ex ante total and anticipatory utility. If the agent can certifiably convey her information, she does so for good news, but unless this leads the principal to make a very costly mistake, to shelter his feelings she pretends to be uninformed when the news is bad.

Introduced in 1993, Georgia’s HOPE Program sponsors a merit‐based scholarship for students attending in‐state colleges and a grant for those entering technical schools. There are no income restrictions. Comparing Georgia with other southeastern states over the 1988–97 period, HOPE increased freshmen enrollment by 5.9%, or 2,889 students per year, which amounts to only 15% of freshmen scholarship recipients. Four‐year colleges account for most of the gain; a reduction in students leaving the state explains two‐thirds of the 4‐year‐school effect attributable to freshmen who have recently graduated from high school. White and black enrollments increased because of HOPE.

Using a panel data set (1997–1999) for 235 publicly listed companies in the People's Republic of China (PRC), this study tests empirically whether the purchase of property insurance mitigates principal-agent (agency) incentive conflicts. In contrast to prior studies, we first estimate a probit insurance participation decision model and then a fixed-effects insurance volume decision model (with Heckman's sample selection correction) in order to shed light on the determinants of both property insurance participation and volume decisions. Our results suggest that a major motivation for the corporate purchase of insurance in China appears to be the mitigation of agency conflicts. Additionally, various ownerships seem to have different impacts on the corporate purchase of insurance in China. Moreover, the results show that the same factor can have different impacts on the insurance participation and volume decisions, and that binding financial conditions may be a key factor accounting for such observed differences.

We develop a model of reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion where “gain-loss utility” is derived from standard “consumption utility” and the reference point is determined endogenously by the economic environment. We assume that a person's reference point is her rational expectations held in the recent past about outcomes, which are determined in a personal equilibrium by the requirement that they must be consistent with optimal behavior given expectations. In deterministic environments, choices maximize consumption utility, but gain-loss utility influences behavior when there is uncertainty. Applying the model to consumer behavior, we show that willingness to pay for a good is increasing in the expected probability of purchase and in the expected prices conditional on purchase. In within-day labor-supply decisions, a worker is less likely to continue work if income earned thus far is unexpectedly high, but more likely to show up as well as continue work if expected income is high.

This article models, and experimentally simulates, the free-rider problem in a takeover when the raider has the option to "resolicit," that is, to make a new offer after an offer has been rejected. In theory, the option to resolicit, by lowering offer credibility, increases the dissipative losses associated with free riding. The outcomes of our experiment support this prediction and produce losses from free riding even higher than theoretically predicted. These dissipation losses reduce raider gains to less than 3% of synergy value of the acquisition

Using a unique sample, we attempt to identify the consequence of the separation between inside ownership and control for firm performance. We exploit the fact that banking institutions may hold their own shares in trust to construct a clean measure of the wedge between inside voting control and cash flow rights. These shares provide managers with no monetary incentives, since their dividends accrue to trust beneficiaries. However, managers may have the authority to vote these shares. Contrary to the belief that managerial control is purely detrimental, we find that it has positive effects on performance over at least some range.

We study the stock market's reaction to aggregate earnings news. Prior research shows that, for individual firms, stock prices react positively to earnings news but require several quarters to fully reflect the information in earnings. We find a substantially different pattern in aggregate data. First, returns are unrelated to past earnings, suggesting that prices neither underreact nor overreact to aggregate earnings news. Second, aggregate returns correlate negatively with concurrent earnings; over the last 30 years, for example, stock prices increased 5.7% in quarters with negative earnings growth and only 2.1% otherwise. This finding suggests that earnings and discount rates move together over time and provides new evidence that discount-rate shocks explain a significant fraction of aggregate stock returns.

We investigate the role of “arbitrageurs,” who exploit price discrepancies between redundant securities. Arbitrage opportunities arise endogenously in an economy populated by rational, heterogeneous investors facing investment restrictions. We show that an arbitrageur alleviates these restrictions and improves the transfer of risk amongst investors. When the arbitrageur behaves noncompetitively, taking into account the price impact of his trades, he optimally limits the size of his positions due to his decreasing marginal profits. When the arbitrageur is subject to margin requirements and is endowed with capital from outside investors, the size of his trades and capital are endogenously determined in equilibrium.

We examine the relationship between casinos and crime using county-level data for the United States between 1977 and 1996. Casinos were nonexistent outside Nevada before 1978, and expanded to many other states during our sample period. Most factors that reduce crime occur before or shortly after a casino opens, whereas those that increase crime, including problem and pathological gambling, occur over time. The results suggest that the effect on crime is low shortly after a casino opens, and grows over time. Roughly 8% of crime in casino counties in 1996 was attributable to casinos, costing the average adult $75 per year.