Altruistic punishment - the punishment of norm violators at one's own cost without material benefit - is frequently observed in experimental economics, field studies and in people's everyday life. The existence of this ostensibly irrational behavior is often linked to other-regarding preferences...

We present a simple agent-based model to study how the proximate triggering factor of a crash or a rally might relate to its fundamental mechanism, and vice versa. Our agents form opinions and invest, based on three sources of information, (i) public information, i.e. news; (ii) information from...

We analyze the relationship between ask and transaction prices in the Swiss residential real estate market over the 2005-2015 period. First, we present strong evidence that ask and transaction prices are co-integrated across different market segments, but they do not Granger-cause one another....

We present a new theory of homogeneous volatility (and variance) estimators for arbitrary stochastic processes. The main tool of our theory is the parsimonious encoding of all the information contained in the OHLC prices for a given time interval by the joint distributions of the high-minusopen,...

We present a theory of homogeneous volatility bridge estimators for log-price stochastic processes. The main tool of our theory is the parsimonious encoding of the information contained in the open, high and low prices of incomplete bridge, corresponding to given log-price stochastic process,...

We introduce the concept of “negative bubbles” as the mirror image of standard financial bubbles, in which positive feedback mechanisms may lead to transient accelerating price falls. To model these negative bubbles, we adapt the Johansen-Ledoit-Sornette (JLS) model of rational expectation...

We review the “social bubble” hypothesis, which holds that strong social interactions between enthusiastic supporters of new ventures weave a network of reinforcing feedbacks that lead to a widespread endorsement and extraordinary commitment by those involved in the projects, beyond what...

Chapter Summary: We consider the recent financial crisis as an overlapping sequence of interdependent financial bubbles followed by their collapse. Governments and regulatory agencies have made it a prime goal to moderate future crises. Many attempts at financial, economic and social engineering...