The purpose of this paper is to assess under what conditions exchange rate volatility exerts a positive effect on a firm's labour demand. As the exchange rate volatility increases, so does the value of the export option provided the firm under study is flexible. Flexibility is important because...

In this paper we study the impact of more transparency in the interbank market on the volume of bank intermediated loans and on the profitability of the banking business. Transparency is modeled by means of the informational content of publicly observable signals correlated to the random...

The competitive allocation of labor across different sectors of an economy may not be socially optimal when one sector uses foreign capital. We argue that a suitably designed government intervention is required to restrict the sectors to their optimal size and maximize national welfare. Such a...

International and national investors are often exposed to real wealth risks, stemming from volatile asset prices and inflation uncertainty, making it difficult to stabilize consumption patterns. However, investors can enter futures markets to hedge against these risks. The paper develops a...

Using a two-moment decision model this paper analyzes corporate hedging behavior in the presence of unified and differential income taxation. We start with the well-known result that risk-taking may increase when income tax rates increase and, therefore, the incentive for hedging reduces. We...

Basel II changes risk management in banks strongly. Internal rating procedures would lead one to expect that banks are changing over to active risk control. But, if risk management is no longer a simple "game against nature", if all agents involved are active players then a shift from a...

We show that a monopolist final goods producer may find it profitable to create competition by licensing its technology if the input market is imperfectly competitive. With a centralized union, we show that licensing by a monopolist is profitable under both uniform and discriminatory wage...

We study the impact of transparency in a commodity market on the decision problem of a competitive firm under price uncertainty and hedging opportunities. Market transparency is modeled by means of the informational content of publicly observable signals which are correlated with the random...

In order to evaluate the allocational effectiveness of regional policy when harmonizing regional economic conditions firms? preferences play a pivot role. If harmonization hinders risk diversification of the firm, then instead of regional diversification of capital agglomeration of capital...

Given that a multinational enterprise can react flexibly upon exchange rate movements, international trade flows may be interpreted as an option. An enterprise will opt to export if the profits obtained from exporting under given exchange rate developments are greater than if foreign subsidiary...