This paper estimates a structural VAR model of U.S. consumer and world commodity prices. An equiproportional long-run response of nominal price levels to amonetary shock yields identifying restrictions. Exogenous innovations tomonetary policy account for a sizable share of the co-movement of these series, including during episodes more commonly attributed to “supply shocks.” JEL Categories: C32...

World food prices hit an all-time high in February 2011 and are still almost two and a half times those of 2000. Although three billion people worldwide use seafood as a key source of animal protein, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations-which compiles prices for other major food categories-has not tracked seafood prices. We fill this gap by developing an index of gl...

This paper studies pricing patterns in a speculative market with asymmetric information populated by both sophisticated and naive traders. Three pricing regimes arise in equilibrium: perfect pricing, with prices equalling asset values, partial mispricing and complete mispricing. Perfect pricing obtains when the presence of naive traders is small although not necessarily zero. When the fraction ...

Tax rates have fluctuated considerably since federal income taxes were introduced in the U.S. in 1913. This paper analyzes the effects of stochastic taxation on asset prices in a dynamic general equilibrium model. Stochastic taxation affects the after-tax returns of both risky and safe assets. Whenever taxes change, bond and equity prices adjust to clear the asset markets. These price adjustmen...

A given number of single-product oligopolists locate in one of two separate market-places, which consumers access at a cost. Firms set prices and the CES consumers choose purchases at one or both market-places. Firm agglomeration in one market-place produces positive profits because of product differentiation. But under various assumptions, geographical separation of firms produces prices analo...

Using a duopoly model with symmetric retailers, we show that retailer strategies regarding opening hours and quality choices of goods vary depending on the cost structure of the quality investment in goods. In the case of the cost remaining constant regardless of the length of opening hours, a retailer with longer opening hours chooses higher quality and charges higher prices. Conversely, in th...

The existence of a pure-strategy subgame-perfect equilibrium in qualities and prices is investigated in a duopoly model of vertical differentiation where quality improvements require a quadratic variable cost and network externalities operate. We show that there exists a parameter region where the incentive to predate at the quality stage prevents firms from reaching a pure-strategy non-coopera...

We examine the price dynamics in Indian cities using cointegration analysis. We identify and then calculate a common trend for prices in these 25 cities. We obtain the impulse response functions to calculate the rates of convergence to the prices, and find that the half-life of any shock is very small for Indian cities. Although a close to three-month half-life seems too fast, there are some in...

Estimates from a structural model of consumer behavior and firm conduct are used to decompose the extent to which quantity discounts for paper towels are consistent with second degree price discrimination as opposed to cost differences across sizes. Counterfactual exercises assuming that firms offer only one package size or charge uniform prices across sizes indicate that competition in the mul...

Double auction markets have consistently been shown to realize almost full efficiency and prices very near the theoretical prediction. Research typically focuses on the performance of the double auction in single market environments. However, real economic activity is coordinated across multiple markets, a far more complex task. This paper uses experimental methods to examine the double auction...