Knowledge that Transforms

The Role of Information in Medical Markets: An Analysis of Publicly Reported Outcomes in Cardiac Surgery by David M. Cutler, Robert S. Huckman and Mary Beth Landrum. Published in volume 94, issue 2, pages 342-346 of American Economic Review, May 2004

This paper presents a case study of a well-informed investor in the South Sea bubble. We argue that Hoare's Bank, a fledgling West End London bank, knew that a bubble was in progress and nonetheless invested in the stock: it was profitable to “ride the bubble.” Using a unique dataset on daily trades, we show that this sophisticated investor was not constrained by such institutional factors as restrictions on short sales or agency problems. Instead, this study demonstrates that predictable investor sentiment can prevent attacks on a bubble; rational investors may attack only when some coordinating event promotes joint action.

The cyclical behavior of real wages has evolved from mildly countercyclical during the interwar period to modestly procyclical in the postwar era. This paper presents a general-equilibrium business-cycle model that helps explain the evolution. In the model, changes in the real wage cyclicality arise from interactions between nominal wage and price rigidities and an evolving input-output structure.

Using the December 1998 and August 2000 CPS Computer and Internet Supplements matched with subsequent CPS files, we ask which types of unemployed workers looked for work on line and whether Internet searchers became reemployed more quickly. In our data, Internet searchers have observed characteristics that are typically associated with shorter unemployment spells, and do spend less time unemployed. This unemployment differential is however eliminated and in some cases reversed when we hold observable characteristics constant. We conclude that either Internet job search is ineffective in reducing unemployment durations, or Internet job searchers are negatively selected on unobservables.

Economics

Robert E. Lucas, Jr. argued that the welfare gains from reducing aggregate consumption volatility are negligible. Subsequent work that revisited his calculation continued to find small welfare benefits, further reinforcing the perception that business cycles do not matter. This paper argues instead that fluctuations can affect welfare, by affecting the growth rate of consumption. I show that fluctuations can reduce growth starting from a given initial consumption, which can imply substantial welfare effects as Lucas himself observed. Empirical evidence suggests the welfare effects are likely to be substantial, about two orders of magnitude greater than Lucas' original estimates.

We present simple one-shot distribution experiments comparing the relative importance of efficiency concerns, maximin preferences, and inequality aversion, as well as the relative performance of the fairness theories by Gary E Bolton and Axel Ockenfels and by Ernst Fehr and Klaus M. Schmidt. While the Fehr-Schmidt theory performs better in a direct comparison, this appears to be due to being in line with maximin preferences. More importantly, we find that a combination of efficiency concerns, maximin preferences, and selfishness can rationalize most of the data while the Bolton-Ockenfels and Fehr-Schmidt theories are unable to explain important patterns.

The Impact of Labor Strikes on Consumer Demand: An Application to Professional Sports by Martin B. Schmidt and David J. Berri. Published in volume 94, issue 1, pages 344-357 of American Economic Review, March 2004

This paper explains the size and value “anomalies” in stock returns using an economically motivated two-beta model. We break the beta of a stock with the market portfolio into two components, one reflecting news about the market's future cash flows and one reflecting news about the market's discount rates. Intertemporal asset pricing theory suggests that the former should have a higher price of risk; thus beta, like cholesterol, comes in “bad” and “good” varieties. Empirically, we find that value stocks and small stocks have considerably higher cash-flow betas than growth stocks and large stocks, and this can explain their higher average returns. The poor performance of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) since 1963 is explained by the fact that growth stocks and high-past-beta stocks have predominantly good betas with low risk prices.