This article discusses the influence of speculators in the futures market on crude oil prices. The results suggest the dispersion in beliefs influences both crude oil prices and price volatility. -- Crude oil market ; futures market ; speculation

While social relationships play an important role for individuals to cope with missing market institutions, they also limit individuals' range of trading partners. This paper aims at understanding the determinants of trust at various social distances when information asymmetries are present....

Whelan (2007) found that the generalized Calvo-sticky-price model fails to replicate a typical feature of the empirical reduced-form Phillips curve - the positive dependence of inflation on its own lags. In this paper, I show hat it is the 4-period-Taylor-contract hazard function he chose that...