Economic and financial time series frequently exhibit time irreversible dynamics. For instance, there is considerable evidence of asymmetric fluctuations in many macroeconomic and financial variables, and certain game theoretic models of price determination predict asymmetric cycles in price series. In this paper, we make two primary contributions to the econometric literature on time reversibi...

A model of contracting for hospital treatments is presented. For a given diagnosis of the patient, two treatments are available: a high-intensity (surgical) treatment and a low-intensity (medical) treatment. A purchaser (the National Health Service, public or private insurer) offers a contract to the provider (the hospital) to maximise the patients' benefit net of costs. We show that if the ave...

Farm milk prices tend to be volatile. Dairy farmers, industry pundits, and policymakers further tend to react to price volatility with alarm. One point of concern is the response of retail prices. This study investigates farm-to-retail price transmission in the 2000s for whole milk and cheddar cheese. Results show that price shocks at the farm gate are transmitted with delay and asymmetry to re...

A two period bargaining model with asymmetric information is considered. An uninformed seller charges a uniform price to two buyers. A risk averse seller offers a larger price cut in period two when one buyer remains in the market than when two buyers remain. The price in period one is sensitive to the number of buyers and the seller’s degree of risk aversion. The initial price charged to a sin...

Investors attend importance to forecast the price of financial assets, thus, the factors affecting the stock price are usually the focus of financial research in the field, in which the most important factors to scholars are firm size transmission effect and price-volume relationship. In this study, the analysis of these two items in the Taiwan stock market is conducted. The results indicate th...

Bidders’ asymmetries are widespread in auction markets. Yet, their impact on behavior and, ultimately, revenue and profits is still not well understood. This paper defines a natural benchmark auction environment to which to compare any private values auction with asymmetrically distributed valuations. The main result is that the expected revenue from the benchmark auction dominates that from th...

eBay provides a large amount of data enough data to investigate how markets address the problem of asymmetric information. This study analyzes 183 auctions of Apple iPod Touches on eBay.com to find the impact of a seller's rating on price. I found that a seller's percent of negative rating significantly impacts the price they ultimately receive.

While the effect speculators have on forward premiums (the difference between forward and expected spot prices) has been widely studied, there has been very little focus on the effect speculators have on competition in the product market. I study the effect speculators have had on production decisions and price levels in New York’s deregulated electricity market. For the Þrst two years of its o...