Welfare costs of inflation when interest-bearing deposits are disregarded: a calculation of the bias

Most estimates of the welfare costs of in ation are devised considering only noninterest- bearing assets, ignoring that since the 80s technological innovations and new regulations have increased the liquidity of interest-bearing deposits. We investigate the resulting bias. Suscient and necessary conditions on its sign are presented, along with closed-form expressions for its magnitude. Two examples dealing with bidimensional bilogarithmic money demands show that disregarding interest-bearing monies may lead to a non-negligible overestimation of the welfare costs of in ation. An intuitive explanation is that such assets may partially make up for the decreased demand of noninterest-bearing assets due to higher in ation.

Endogenous Transaction Costs

The paper proposes an alternative general equilibrium formulation of financial asset economies with transactions costs. Transaction costs emerge endogenously at equilibrium and reflect agents decisions of intermediating financial activities at the expense of providing labor services. An equilibrium is shown to exist in the case of real asset structures.

Endogenous transactions costs in multi-seller model

vVe examine the problem of a buyer who wishes to purehase and eombine ti. objeets owned by n individual owners to realize a higher V'illue. The owners are able to delay their entry into the sale proeess: They ean either seU now 01' seU later. Among other assumptions, the simple assumptions of compef'if'irnl, · .. that the presenee of more owners at point of sale reduees their surplus .. · and di..,(Jyun,fúl,g lead to interesting results: There is eostly delay in equilibdum. rvIoreover, with suffidently strong eompetition, the probability of delay inereases with n. Thus, buyers who diseount the future \\i11 faee inereased eosts as the number of owners inereases. The souree of transaetions eosts is the owners' desire to dis-eoordinate in the presenee of eompetition. These eosts are unrelated to transaetions eosts eurrently identified in the literature, spedfieally those due to asymmetrie information, 01' publie goods problems where players impose negative externalities on eaeh other by under-eontributing.

Should we be afraid of managed care?: a theoretical assessment

Managed caIe capitation contracts provide monetary incentives for doctoIs to save medical costs while standard health insurance contracts do noto The papeI proposes an alternative model for insurance markets which is used to analyze managed caIe contracts. In our model, households would like to buy insurance for the possible need of a service. The distinctive aspect of our model is that providers of service have privileged information on the most appropriate procedure to be followed. In the managed care application of the model, doctors are the providers of the service and through a diagnosis have better information of the patient's health condition. Equilibrium in our model is always constrained eflicient. A partial capitation contract arises when both the cost and net benefits of treatment are high enough. We show that a capitation contract provides incentives for doctors: i) to care about the likelihood households will obtain the good state of nature (altruistic behamor); and ii) to save medical costs (managed care behamor). Doctors, in this case, choose less medically eflicient treatments as they would choose under a standard health insurance contract. Besides this, household' welfare is increased in comparison to the standard contract. This increased welfare translates into a revealed preference for the capitation contract.

On the welfare costs of business cycles in the 20th century

Lucas (1987) has shown a surprising result in business-cycle research, that the welfare cost of business cycles are relatively small. Using standard assumptions on preferences and a reasonable reduced form for consumption, we computed these welfare costs for the pre- and post-WWII era, using three alternative trend-cycle decomposition methods. The post-WWII period is very era this basic result is dramatically altered. For the Beveridge and Nelson decomposition, and reasonable preference parameter and discount values, we get a compensation of about 5% of consumption, which is by all means a sizable welfare cost (about US$ 1,000.00 a year).

Unemployment insurance an analysis of optimal mechanisms under aggregate shocks

The purpose of this work is to provide a brief overview of the literature on the optimal design of unemployment insurance systems by analyzing some of the most influential articles published over the last three decades on the subject and extend the main results to a multiple aggregate shocks environment. The properties of optimal contracts are discussed in light of the key assumptions commonly made in theoretical publications on the area. Moreover, the implications of relaxing each of these hypothesis is reckoned as well. The analysis of models of only one unemployment spell starts from the seminal work of Shavell and Weiss (1979). In a simple and common setting, unemployment benefits policies, wage taxes and search effort assignments are covered. Further, the idea that the UI distortion of the relative price of leisure and consumption is the only explanation for the marginal incentives to search for a job is discussed, putting into question the reduction in labor supply caused by social insurance, usually interpreted as solely an evidence of a dynamic moral hazard caused by a substitution effect. In addition, the paper presents one characterization of optimal unemployment insurance contracts in environments in which workers experience multiple unemployment spells. Finally, an extension to multiple aggregate shocks environment is considered. The paper ends with a numerical analysis of the implications of i.i.d. shocks to the optimal unemployment insurance mechanism.

The n-dimensional bailey-divisia measure as a general-equilibrium measure of the welfare costs of inflation

This paper shows that in economies with several monies the Bailey-Divisia multidimensional consumers surplus formula may emerge as an exact general-equilibrium measure of the welfare costs of in ation, provided that preferences are quasilinear.

A dynamic model of price competition with switching and search costs

Em modelos de competição de preços, somente um custo de procura positivo por parte do consumidor não gera equilíbrio com dispersão de preços. Já modelos dinâmicos de switching cost consistentemente geram este fenômeno bastante documentado para preços no varejo. Embora ambas as literaturas sejam vastas, poucos modelos tentaram combinar as duas fricções em um só modelo. Este trabalho apresenta um modelo dinâmico de competição de preços em que consumidores idênticos enfrentam custos de procura e de switching. O equilíbrio gera dispersão nos preços. Ainda, como os consumidores são obrigados a se comprometer com uma amostra fixa de firmas antes dos preços serem definidos, somente dois preços serão considerados antes de cada compra. Este resultado independe do tamanho do custo de procura individual do consumidor.

On the welfare costs of business-cycle fluctuations and economic-growth variation in the 20th century

Lucas (1987) has shown a surprising result in business-cycle research: the welfare cost of business cycles are very small. Our paper has several original contributions. First, in computing welfare costs, we propose a novel setup that separates the effects of uncertainty stemming from business-cycle fluctuations and economic-growth variation. Second, we extend the sample from which to compute the moments of consumption: the whole of the literature chose primarily to work with post-WWII data. For this period, actual consumption is already a result of counter-cyclical policies, and is potentially smoother than what it otherwise have been in their absence. So, we employ also pre-WWII data. Third, we take an econometric approach and compute explicitly the asymptotic standard deviation of welfare costs using the Delta Method. Estimates of welfare costs show major differences for the pre-WWII and the post-WWII era. They can reach up to 15 times for reasonable parameter values -β=0.985, and ∅=5. For example, in the pre-WWII period (1901-1941), welfare cost estimates are 0.31% of consumption if we consider only permanent shocks and 0.61% of consumption if we consider only transitory shocks. In comparison, the post-WWII era is much quieter: welfare costs of economic growth are 0.11% and welfare costs of business cycles are 0.037% - the latter being very close to the estimate in Lucas (0.040%). Estimates of marginal welfare costs are roughly twice the size of the total welfare costs. For the pre-WWII era, marginal welfare costs of economic-growth and business- cycle fluctuations are respectively 0.63% and 1.17% of per-capita consumption. The same figures for the post-WWII era are, respectively, 0.21% and 0.07% of per-capita consumption.

Determinants for political risk insurance of direct investments in emerging markets

Esta dissertação analisa os principais determinantes para investidores contratarem seguro de proteção de riscos políticos (PRI) para seus investimentos diretos, assim com o racional de sair de um PRI não renovando suas políticas. Esta dissertação contribui para a literatura existente sobre PRI, investigando os principais motivadores para PRI, tais como, riscos políticos, riscos econômicos, capacidade do patrocinador, instrumento utilizado para realizar o investimento (horizonte do investimento) determina combinações de PRI utilizando um modelo binário de resposta não linear. Um banco de dados único da Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) no período de 1990 até 2010, contendo informações sobre 693 investimentos incluindo sua cobertura para: seguro de risco de conversibilidade, seguro para risco de expropriação, riscos de guerras e distúrbios civis e riscos de quebra de contrato. Entretanto, percebemos que 47% destes seguros não permanecem ativos até o prazo originalmente contratado. Adicionalmente, instituições financeiras como garantidoras utilizam proporcionalmente mais dívida do que capital como instrumento de investimento e são largamente seguradas dentro da União Européia (EU). Por outro lado, investidores nos BRICs tendem a cobrir primariamente seus investimentos em infraestrutura. Resultados empíricos incluem que um aumento nos riscos de quebra de contrato e guerra civil estão totalmente correlacionados com a renovação de contratos de seguro, assim como um aumento da percepção de risco do pais que está recebendo o investimento.

Análise do comportamento financeiro de contas médicas em eventos cirúrgicos, comparado a índices inflacionários de preços e mercado de saúde

A prática de saúde no país passa por grandes e difíceis desafios. No que tange a financiamento o setor público ainda carece de um melhor dimensionamento e proposta estratégica. Já o setor privado tem sua crise pela falta de maios análise dos seus custos e suas variações. A regulação do setor suplementar ainda é muito jovem. Os grandes desafios da saúde e a busca de solução são uma constante para melhor dimensionar e gerir o processo. Vários são os fatores pressionam o modelo aumentando seus gastos e ainda em uma situação mais perversa sem nenhuma previsão. Há a necessidade urgente de se entender o modelo de gastos envolvidos e acima de tudo os fatores que mais interferem na variação desses gastos. O trabalho que segue busca entender melhor o problema de variação de custos destes serviços prestados, através da análise de três casos médicos de alta relevância: apendicectomia; histerectomia; e colecistectomia, observando a variação dos preços praticados em uma série histórica de 5 anos, comparando com índices econômicos e inflacionários como IPCA, variação dos preços dos planos de saúde pela ANS e variação dos custos médicos hospitalares. Como resultados observamos que para estes eventos clássicos e isolados eventos não há um padrão nítido de preços atrelados a qualquer destes índices, nem uma variação linear que permita uma maior e melhor análise. Ao mesmo tempo quando se aumenta o volume dos atendimentos, no mix dos três eventos passamos a observar uma relação bem próxima ao IPCA que por sua vez é muito próxima do índice de reajustes autorizado pela ANS no período. Muito há o que ser feito e estudado como forma de melhor entender este modelo de preços e custos, bem como suas variações.

On the welfare costs of business-cycle fluctuations and economic-growth variation in the 20th century

Lucas(1987) has shown a surprising result in business-cycle research: the welfare cost of business cycles are very small. Our paper has several original contributions. First, in computing welfare costs, we propose a novel setup that separates the effects of uncertainty stemming from business-cycle uctuations and economic-growth variation. Second, we extend the sample from which to compute the moments of consumption: the whole of the literature chose primarily to work with post-WWII data. For this period, actual consumption is already a result of counter-cyclical policies, and is potentially smoother than what it otherwise have been in their absence. So, we employ also pre-WWII data. Third, we take an econometric approach and compute explicitly the asymptotic standard deviation of welfare costs using the Delta Method. Estimates of welfare costs show major diferences for the pre-WWII and the post-WWII era. They can reach up to 15 times for reasonable parameter values = 0:985, and = 5. For example, in the pre-WWII period (1901-1941), welfare cost estimates are 0.31% of consumption if we consider only permanent shocks and 0.61% of consumption if we consider only transitory shocks. In comparison, the post-WWII era is much quieter: welfare costs of economic growth are 0.11% and welfare costs of business cycles are 0.037% the latter being very close to the estimate in Lucas (0.040%). Estimates of marginal welfare costs are roughly twice the size of the total welfare costs. For the pre-WWII era, marginal welfare costs of economic-growth and business-cycle uctuations are respectively 0.63% and 1.17% of per-capita consumption. The same gures for the post-WWII era are, respectively, 0.21% and 0.07% of per-capita consumption.

How to indirectly assess transaction costs to evaluate market integration: evidence from the international ethanol market

Mercados são instituições criadas para facilitar uma atividade de comercialização. Isto é possível porque um mercado é constituído por instituições que foram desenhadas para reduzir os custos de transação associados a este processo de troca. A partir dessas duas ideias, esta tese possui três objetivos principais. (i) Analisar por que a literatura de análise de cointegração tem mensurado estes custos de forma imprecisa. A principal razão é certa confusão entre os conceitos de custos de transação, de transporte e de comercialização. (ii) Propor um procedimento para mensurar indiretamente os custos de transação de mercado variáveis combinando os modelos de cointegração com mudança de regime e a estrutura teórica oferecidas pela Nova Economia Institucional. Este procedimento é aplicado para quantificar quanto custa comercializar etanol no mercado internacional usando suas atuais instituições. (iii) Por fim, usando os mesmos modelos e a mesma estrutura teórica, esta dissertação contesta a hipótese de que já existe um mercado internacional de etanol bem desenvolvido, tal qual a literatura tem assumido. De forma semelhante, também é avaliada a hipótese de que a remoção das barreiras comerciais norte-americanas para o etanol brasileiro seria uma condição suficiente para o desenvolvimento deste mercado internacional. Os testes aplicados rejeitam ambas as hipóteses.