Presenter: Chris Ball

Adding Outside Money to Sidrauskian Economies: Mechanisms Matter

Authors: Chris Ball (Quinnipiac University)

Abstract: How monetary policy functions has changed dramatically in recent decades.  Modern models have actually not caught up to practice yet our intuition based on traditional models is no longer accurate.  This paper is one step along the road of re-thinking how our traditional models work in light of more modern topics like how balance sheets matter.  It starts with a key classic in monetary theory, Sidrauski’s (1967) paper establishing money in the utility function and money neutrality in growing economies. I explore the possible mechanisms for adding money to the economy in this model and the implications for policy objectives including feasibility in terms of balance sheet stability for the central bank.  The key finding is that the standard means of introducing money, via net transfers from the fiscal authority, is neither realistic nor feasible nor particularly “monetary”. The only other options lead to natural ways to think about commodity and gold standards.  I close by comparing the policy and balance sheet feasibility of each option.

Presenter: Daniel Deak (CUB)

GLOBAL MINIMUM TAX AND HUNGARIAN REACTION

Authors: Daniel Deak

Abstract: The research topic to be discussed seeks to answer the question of the global minimum tax plan and how international organisations came to propose a radical reform of international tax law.  It also seeks to answer the question of why Hungary did not join the agreement of 136 states in October 2021 (although it did join after some delay) and why it remained the only Member State in the European Union that did not support adopting a directive on applying the global minimum tax in the EU.  A related question is why the United States took the unusual step of making a notice to the 1979 US-Hungarian double taxation treaty that is not unrelated to Hungary’s reluctance to cooperate.  These issues are linked to Hungary’s specific behaviour, for which an explanation is sought below.

Presenter: Hubert János Kiss 

  Language use and intertemporal choice 

  Authors: Tamás Keller (KRTK) and Hubert János Kiss (CUB) 

  Abstract: The influential study by Chen (2013) shows that the degree to which languages require future events to be grammatically marked is associated with intertemporal choice, often referred to as the Linguistic Savings Hypothesis. Recent studies attempted to unveil the mechanisms behind this association by manipulating exogenously the language used when interacting with participants, with ambiguous results. Instead of such exogenous manipulation, we elicit the participants’ natural language use with a novel sentence completion task. We investigate whether the endogenous use of grammatical markers of the future correlates with more impatient intertemporal choices, a potential mechanism behind the Linguistic Savings Hypothesis. We find no convincing evidence that future time reference correlates with intertemporal choice. 

Presenter: Dominik Karos (http://www.imdokay.com/)

  From prejudice to racial profiling and back

  Authors: Dominik Karos (Bielefeld University) and Manuel Förster (Bielefeld University) 

  Abstract: A designer conducts random searches to detect criminals, and may condition the search probability on individuals’ appearance. She updates her belief about the distribution of criminals across appearances using her search results, but incorrectly takes her sample distribution for the population distribution. In equilibrium she employs optimal search probabilities given her belief, and her belief is consistent with her findings. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of an equilibrium and show that she will be discriminating an appearance if and only if she overestimates the probability of this appearance’s being criminal. Notably, the ranking of two appearances’ being criminal may be reversed in equilibrium. We then fit our model to data from New York City. The equilibrium that best explains the data is such that the high perceived crime rate among Black people is mostly due to them being stopped overproportionally often. 

Presenter: Arseniy Samsonov (https://sites.google.com/view/asamsonov)

How can social media limit disinformation?

  Author: Arseniy Samsonov (QSMS, BME) 

  Abstract: Political disinformation is dangerous for democracies. Social and government pressure made Facebook and Twitter start labeling posts that contain disinformation. This policy became known as fact-checking. Does competition between platforms promote fact-checking? I propose a model in which two platforms decide whether to fact-check a politician. One of the platforms is ex-ante more attractive to voters than the other. The politician chooses which platforms to use and how often to misrepresent the state of the world if it is bad for her. In equilibrium, fact-checking is more likely if the politician has low approval or one of the platforms is highly more attractive than its competitor. The model’s policy implication is that reducing market power for the dominant social media firm can make fact-checking less likely.

Presenter: Nickolas Gagnon (https://www.nickolasgagnon.com/)

The Effect of Gender Discrimination on Labor Supply

  Authors: Nickolas Gagnon (Aarhus University), Kristof Bosmans (Maastricht University), and Arno Riedl (Maastricht University)

  Abstract: We conduct experiments on an online platform to investigate the causal effect of gender discrimination on labor supply decisions. Controlling for the piece-rate wage, workers who face negative gender-discriminatory wage inequality supply substantially less labor compared to workers who face gender-neutral wage inequality (−0.16 standard deviations) and compared to workers with equal wages (−0.21 standard deviations). We also examine the effect of positive discrimination, differences between men and women, and the role of beliefs about facing discrimination. Our results point to the labor supply reaction to discrimination as a novel mechanism driving a gender gap in earnings.

Presenter: Péter Isztin

Early and Late Specialization: General Framework and Applications

  Author: Péter Isztin (CUB)

  Abstract: Why do some parents send their children early to vocational schools or apprenticeships, or prepare them for a career in acting, while other parents leave specialization entirely to the child, sending the child first to general middle schools or to a liberal arts college? I consider these questions in a unified framework, where parents face uncertainty over their offspring’s labor market prospects. In general, consistent with related earlier results and basic intuition, greater uncertainty induces less early specialization. Early specialization may occur due to dynamic complementarities in human capital investments: later skills build on earlier accumulated skills. Early specialization is more likely when segregation along ethnic lines is more prevalent and when the parent’s (and child’s) ethnic group is small relative to the industry size, and when peer connections are especially important in landing a job in the given industry. As general human capital becomes more productive in the household (consumption) sector, and/or the time spent at “leisure” activities increases, specialization is often postponed, and intergenerational occupational mobility increases. Because accumulating general knowledge has a “learning how to learn” component, delayed specialization encourages later career switches and makes a “late bloomer” pattern more likely. Early specialization is shown to be more likely in “superstar” industries, as well as industries where learning by doing or on the job training is more important relative to formal learning. The framework developed in the paper also helps account for the emergence, durability and eventual decline of caste and other hereditary systems, and helps us understand the effects of gender-focused educational interventions.

Presenter: Wolfgang Kuhle

On Latency Arbitrage and the Synchronized Placement of Orders

Author: Wolfgang Kuhle (CUB & MEA, Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich, Germany)

Abstract: We argue that contemporary stock market designs are, due to traders’ inability to fully express their preferences over the execution times of their orders, prone to latency arbitrage. In turn, we propose a new order type which allows traders to specify the time at which their orders are executed after reaching the exchange. Using recent latency data, we show that the order type proposed here allows traders to synchronize order executions across different exchanges, such that high-frequency traders, even if they operate at the speed of light, can no-longer engage in latency arbitrage.

Presenter: András Borsos

Macroprudential policy evaluation in a high-resolution housing market agent-based model

Authors: András Borsos (Magyar Nemzeti Bank/ Hungarian National Bank), Zsuzsanna Hosszú (Magyar Nemzeti Bank/ Hungarian National Bank), Bence Mérő (Magyar Nemzeti Bank/ Hungarian National Bank), Nikolett Vágó (Magyar Nemzeti Bank/ Hungarian National Bank)

Abstract: In this study we investigated the impact of the LTV (loan-to-value) and the DSTI (debt service-to-income) regulations with a complex agent-based model (ABM) of the Hungarian housing market. Our framework represents all the 4 million households and flats in the country as well as the housing loan contracts existing between households and the banking sector, thus providing a complete mapping of the relevant part of the Hungarian economy based on empirical data. We can capture the complexity of the credit and real estate markets by featuring transactions in the housing and rental markets, a construction sector, buy-to-let investors, and a banking sector regulated by a macroprudential authority. In our analysis we compare nine regulatory scenarios coming from the combinations of stricter, looser or unchanged LTV and DSTI regulations complemented with a tenth “no regulation” scenario. Besides the typically considered stability-efficiency trade-off we also analyzed other aspects of the macroprudential regulations, such as social consequences and implications on the housing stock in the country. Furthermore, the 1:1 scale resolution of the model made it possible to generate disaggregated results based on geographical units, income deciles, and the type of the transactions (e.g. purchases first-time buyer households, or buy-to-let investors).

Presenter: Andreas Orland

Sharing rules in Bertrand duopolies with increasing returns

Authors: Andreas Orland (CIAS, CUB)

Abstract: Despite its empirical relevance, increasing returns to scale are understudied in experimental markets. We fill this gap by comparing two sharing rules in Bertrand duopolies with increasing returns: the symmetric sharing rule (where each of the two firms that set the same price serves half of the market demand) and the winner-takes-all sharing rule (where a fair randomization device decides which of the two firms serves the entire market). We hypothesized that market prices under the winner-takes-all rule are higher because it provides a collusion mechanism that the symmetric rule does not. While we find that subjects under the winner-takes-all rule indeed coordinate more than twice as often on one price compared to the symmetric sharing rule, we do not find that this increases market prices. This might be driven by the problem that subjects do not coordinate on sufficiently high prices. In further analyses, we report findings on alternation, an alternative collusion strategy, and intertemporal price adjustments.

Presenter: Álmos Telegdy

Subsidy-Driven Firm Growth: Does Loan History Matter? Evidence from a European Union Subsidy Program

Authors: Tirupam Goel (BIS), Álmos Telegdy (CUB), Péter Lang (Central Bank of Hungary), Ádám Banai (Central Bank of Hungary), Előd Takáts (CUB and London School of Economics and Political Science)

Abstract: Subsidies should target firms with profitable opportunities but without funding. We study how credit registry data can help design efficient subsidy programs. Using subsidy winners and losers as treated and control groups, we leverage variation in access to loans to identify the differential impact of subsidies. Despite the higher marginal value of capital, the impact of subsidy on assets and performance is not greater in loan-deprived than in loan-acquiring firms. Thus, loan deprivation is likely caused by borrower shortcomings instead of credit rationing. In such cases, subsidies need not privilege loan-deprived firms and banks may be better at distributing subsidies.

Presenter: Gergely Kőhegyi

Summoning the Ghost: Hermann Heinrich Gossen

Authors: Gergely Kőhegyi (CUB)

Abstract: The mysterious parallel discovery of marginalism is generally associated with the triumvirate of William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, and Carl Menger. However, Hermann Heinrich Gossen’s single book, including the so-called ‘Gossen’s laws’, had been published earlier than the main works of the triumvirate. Moreover, this book — which is often said to be discussing the foundations of modern economic analysis with mathematical models as a coherent theory — was written in complete intellectual isolation by a civilian servant who had been educated under the aegis of ‘Cameralwissenschaft’, where not only mathematical reasoning but even the use of deductive laws in social analysis were labeled as illegitimate. Unfortunately, Gossen failed to refer to his predecessors and we have extremely scarce information about him in general. Therefore he created a puzzle for the historians of economics to reconstruct his inspirations to write such a grandiose work. Due to the lack of information, the answers to this puzzle consist mostly of hypotheses. From a historical point of view, the current problem is the following one: If we accept the common hypotheses about the sources influenced significantly Gossen’s philosophical and methodological standpoint and even his attitude towards the topics of political economy, these facts cannot explain why applied Gossen extensively mathematical tools combined with a psychological reductionism in value theory, and especially why formulated statements about the diminishing intensity of pleasure and optimality. This paper attempts to give a partial answer to this question based on unexplored archival documents.

Presenter: Gergely Hajdu (https://sites.google.com/view/gergelyhajdu/)

Preference for Payoff Autonomy and Motivated Beliefs

 Authors: Gergely Hajdu (WU Vienna University of Economics and Business) and Nikola Frollová (Prague University of Economics and Business)

  Abstract: We document a preference for payoff autonomy and its effect on overconfidence. In an experiment, participants, ex-post, can decide to be paid after their top performer counterpart instead of themselves. Even though most participants believe that they performed worse than their counterpart they prefer to self-rely suggesting a preference for payoff autonomy. We estimate that participants are willing to give up 15% of their expected earnings in order to self-rely. To test our predictions on motivated beliefs, we provide participants with the distribution of performances from the counterpart’s session. At the same time, we manipulate whether participants know about the delegation opportunity before or after they report their beliefs about their own and their counterpart’s performances. Despite the predicted difference in beliefs about the counterpart’s performance advantage, we find no difference in delegation rates between the two conditions. These results suggest that self-reliance is perceived as a principle that does not require additional justification. Survey responses further corroborate this conclusion.

Presenter: Luca Sandrini (https://sites.google.com/view/lucasandriniphd/home)

Patents with Simultaneous Innovations: The Role of the Non-Obviousness Requirement

  Authors: Fabio M. Manenti (Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova), Luca Sandrini (Research Centre of Quantitative Social and Management Sciences, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics)

  Abstract: In this paper, we model a three-stage duopolistic game where firms first simultaneously choose which innovative project to develop, then invest in R&D, and finally, compete. We assume that firms can invest either in non-competing innovations or substitute technologies. The R&D outcome is uncertain, and if successful, it can be imitated by a rival firm. Patent protection prevents imitation and is granted to inventions with a sufficient degree of innovativeness. We show that compared to a regime where negligible innovations are patentable, introducing a non-obviousness requirement for patentability can positively affect market efficiency. However, we show that a too stringent non-obviousness requirement may induce firms to forego investments, hampering social welfare. Importantly, we also show that the level of the requirement may affect the direction of firms’ R\&D trajectories.  Indeed, firms tend to concentrate investments in substitute technologies if the non-obviousness requirement is negligible but may be induced to coordinate investments in different technological areas if the requirement is sufficiently (but not too) strict. We show that if such a policy exists, it is desirable as it strictly increases social welfare and consumer surplus.

Presenter: César Hidalgo (https://cesarhidalgo.com/)

 Economic complexity theory and applications

  Author: César Hidalgo (Center for Collective Learning, ANITI, TSE-R, IAST, IRIT, University of Toulouse, University of Manchester, and Harvard University, Datawheel)  

Abstract: Economic complexity methods have become popular tools in economic geography, international development, and innovation studies. Here, I review economic complexity theory and applications, with a particular focus on two streams of research: the literature on relatedness, which focuses on the evolution of specialization patterns, and the literature on metrics of economic complexity, which uses dimensionality reduction techniques to create metrics of economic sophistication that are predictive of variations in income, economic growth, emissions, and income inequality. I will conclude by presenting examples of how these tools are being used in economic development planning and strategy.

Presenter: Mbona Nokulunga

 Determinants of using formal vs informal financial sector in BRICS group

 Authors: Mbona Nokulunga (CUB), Klára Major (CUB)

Abstract: This paper investigates the determinants of using formal vs informal financial services to save and borrow within the BRICS countries. This paper offers the following as a novelty- 1st we used the new and comprehensive 2021 individual data from the Global Findex database, 2nd the employed methodologies are robust as they complement each other.  Method 1: regression tree and stylized facts are used to find and visualize the main individual factors impacting the decision on savings either formally or informally. Data shows many adults in India and South Africa borrow more informally than from banks.   The regression tree results show individuals characteristics such as those with low education, and middle to poorest income used informal savings clubs to save, especially women.

Method 2: then we use the probit model to find the probability impact of individuals’ characteristics on the decision to save and borrow from banks or informally. The results from the probit model complement those of the regression tree and were as follows: there is a positive marginal effect of male saving through banks and a negative probability of using a savers club. 2nd individuals with primary education had a negative and significant probability of borrowing from banks and a positive probability of borrowing from friends.  Tertiary graduates do the opposite by borrowing and saving only with banks. These results suggest education level is an important characteristic determining individuals’ use of formal vs informal financial sector. Thus, individuals with tertiary education tend to have financial literacy, employment, and regular income, and thus collateral which in the end allows them to build relationships and trust with banks.  For growth in financial inclusion, financial reforms should also target financial literacy in the BRICS.

Speaker: Ben Greiner

 The effect of a ‘None of the above’ ballot paper option on voting behavior and election outcomes

  Authors: Attila Ambrus (Duke University, Department of Economic), Ben Greiner (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Institute for Markets and Strategy; University of New South Wales, School of Economics), Anita Zednik (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Institute for Markets and Strategy)

Abstract: We study how an explicit blank vote option “None of the above” (NOTA) on the ballot paper affects the behavior of voters and political candidates as well as election results. In a series of survey and laboratory experiments we identify a tradeoff regarding making NOTA an explicit voting option. On the one hand it can reduce the vote share of candidates who voters consider as protest candidates, who often come from the extremes of the political spectrum, making it less likely that such a protest candidate wins the election. On the other hand, anticipating the above effect, establishment candidates may care less about the electorate when NOTA is on the ballot. Evidence on voters’ reaction to NOTA comes from two online survey experiments conducted in the weeks preceding the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the 2016 Austrian run-off election for President. Participants were subjected to either the original ballot paper or to a ballot paper where we added a NOTA option.  We investigate the dynamic response of politicians to the presence of NOTA in a laboratory experiment in which an establishment candidate can decide between selfish and fair policy proposals and voters can choose between the establishment candidate and an inefficient protest option.

Speaker: Emin Karagözoğlu (https://sites.google.com/site/eminkaragozoglu/)

 Earned Entitlements and Risky Investments in Bargaining: An Experiment

  Authors: Mürüvvet Büyükboyacı (Middle East Technical University), Emin Karagözoğlu (Bilkent University and CESifo-Munich), Serkan Küçükşenel (Middle East Technical University)

Abstract: We experimentally investigate risky investment decisions over jointly produced surplus, the impact of contributions to the surplus, risky investment decision and outcome of investment decision on bargaining outcomes in an organizational setting with two agents. Agents’ initial contributions to the bargaining surplus are determined in a real-effort task. Then, in three (between-subjects) treatments: an investment decision is taken by the computer, the low contributor, and the high contributor. Our results show that (i) the frequency of choosing the risky investment alternative is not affected by the agents’ initial contributions, (ii) low contributors benefit from making the investment decision, and (iii) when low contributors make the investment decision, their shares of the bargaining surplus in agreements are affected from whether the risky investment turns out to be successful or not, whereas this is not true for high contributors when they make the decision. These observations point toward the possibility of asymmetric impact of decision authority and outcome bias in an organizational setting where parties bargain to share a jointly produced surplus.

Speaker: Ryan Tierney (https://www.rtierney.com/)

Crowding in School Choice 

Authors: William Phan (Department of Economics, North Carolina State University, USA)
Ryan Tierney (Department of Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
Yu Zhou (Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Japan)

Abstract: We consider the market design problem of matching students to schools in the presence of crowding effects. These effects are salient in parents’ decision making and the empirical literature; however, they cause major difficulties in the design of satisfactory mechanisms and, as such, are not currently considered. We propose a new framework and an equilibrium notion that accommodates crowding, no-envy, and respect for priorities. The equilibrium has a student-optimal element that induces an incentive compatible mechanism and is implementable via a novel algorithm. Moreover, analogs of fundamental structural results of the matching literature—the Rural Hospitals Theorem, welfare lattice, etc.—survive.

Speaker: Alexandru Minea (https://carleton.ca/economics/people/minea-alexandru/)

 The Perils of Fiscal Feedback Rules

 Authors: Maxime Menuet (LEO, University of Orléans, France)
Alexandru Minea (LEO, University of Orléans, France; Department of Economics, Carleton University, Canada)
Patrick Villieu (LEO, University of Orléans, France)

Abstract: Fiscal feedback rules (FFRs) that negatively link the primary fiscal balance to the public debt are often advocated to prevent unsustainable government debt dynamics, in line with the seminal work of Bohn (QJE, 1998). We build an endogenous growth model to assess the impact of FFRs on the dynamics of public debt and economic growth. In our setup, part of the debt burden is sterilized by increases in the primary balance, while the remaining part is financed by issuing new debt. While low sterilization leads to an unsustainable public debt, high sterilization may generate multiple steady states, hysteresis, and aggregate instability in the form of indeterminacy and long-lasting fluctuations. In this way, a strong reaction of the primary surplus to the debt burden can condemn the economy to a low-growth/high-debt trap and may be a source of high-periodicity public debt cycles. By extending the model to include random shocks we obtain stochastic public debt cycles, consistent with the data.