The fundamental feature of private contracting is its relational nature. When faced with unforeseen or unexpected circumstances, private parties, as long as the relation remains worthwhile, adjust their required performance without the need for costly renegotiation or formal recontracting....

This paper examines the financing decisions of regulated public utilities. It is argued that the regulatory process affects utility financing choices both by conditioning the environment in which these choices are made and by creating opportunities for firms to influence the regulated price...

A number of authors have suggested that investors derive utility from realizing gains and losses on assets that they own. We present a model of this quot;realization utility,quot; analyze its predictions, and show that it can shed light on a number of puzzling facts. These include the...

We analyze a number of unstudied aspects of retail electricity competition. We first explore the implications of load profiling of consumers whose traditional meters do not allow for measurement of their real time consumption, when consumers are homogeneous up to a scaling factor. In general,...

The standard economic model of efficient competitive markets relies on the ability of sellers to charge prices that vary as their costs change. Yet, there is no restructured electricity market in which most retail customers can be charged realtime prices (RTP), prices that can change as...

Adoption of real-time electricity pricing %u2014 retail prices that vary hourly to reflect changing wholesale prices %u2014 removes existing cross-subsidies to those customers that consume disproportionately more when wholesale prices are highest. If their losses are substantial, these customers...

We describe the patterns of international capital flows in the period 1970 - 2000. We then examine the determinants of capital flows and capital flows volatility during this period. We find that institutional quality is an important determinant of capital flows. Historical determinants of...

The empirical analysis in quot;International Ramp;D Spilloversquot; (Coe and Helpman, 1995) is first revisited by applying modern panel cointegration estimation techniques to an expanded data set that we have constructed for the purpose of this study. The new estimates confirm the key results...

We examine the choice between Foreign Direct Investment and Foreign Portfolio Investment at the level of the source country. Based on a theoretical model, we predict that (1) source countries with higher probability of aggregate liquidity crises export relatively more FPI than FDI, and (2) this...

We extend our earlier work, focusing on the links between capital account liberalization, legal and institutional development, and financial development, especially that in equity markets. In a panel data analysis encompassing 108 countries and twenty years ranging from 1980 to 2000, we explore...