This article examines the primary motivation of the bank merger waves in the 1990s. Our investigation of the factors that determine bid premiums paid for target banks focuses on the importance of the financial characteristics of the targets, composition of their boards of directors, and the...

The current expansion has delivered the lowest unemployment rates in decades, yet nominal wage growth has remained relatively contained. This suggests to some a shift in the historical relationship between unemployment and wage growth. We look across the states for more timely evidence of a...

This paper uses over two years of weekly scanner data from two small US cities to characterize time and state dependence of grocers' pricing decisions. In these data, the probability of a nominal adjustment declines with the time since the last price change. This reflects differences over time...

This paper shows that one of the defining features of Walrasian equilibrium---law of one price---characterizes equilibrium in a non-Walrasian environment of (1) random trade matching without double coincidence of wants, and (2) strategic, price-setting conduct. Money is modeled as perfectly...

Implied probability density functions (PDFs) estimated from cross-sections of observed options prices are gaining increasing attention amongst academics and practitioners. However, to date little attention has been paid to the robustness of these estimates or to the confidence users can place in...

Cross-sections of option prices embed the risk-neutral probability densities functions (PDFs) for the future values of the underlying asset. Theory suggests that risk-neutral PDFs differ from market expectations due to risk premia. Using a utility function to adjust the risk-neutral PDF to...

This paper focuses on the recently developing financial derivatives markets, and examines the usefulness of option prices as an information variable for monetary policy implementation. A set of option prices provides us with information on the whole probability distribution of the future values...

Suppose the nominal money supply could be cut literally overnight by, say, 20%. What would happen to prices, wages, output? The answer can be found in 1720s France, where just such an experiment was carried out, repeatedly. Prices adjusted instantaneously and fully on one market only, that for...

The 1987 market crash was associated with a dramatic and permanent steepening of the implied volatility curve for equity index options, despite minimal changes in aggregate consumption. We explain these events within a general equilibrium framework in which expected endowment growth and economic...