In settings characterized by imperfect information about an underlying state of nature, but where inferences are made sequentially and are publicly observable, decisions may yield a "cascade" in which everyone herds on a single choice. While cascades potentially play a role in a variety of...

Issues of recent interest and controversy regarding bid-ask spreads in commodity futures markets are investigated. First we apply competing spread estimators to open outcry transactions data and compare resulting estimates to observed spreads. This enables market microstructure researchers,...

Two behavioral concepts, loss aversion and mental accounting, have recently been combined to provide a theoretical explanation of the equity premium puzzle. Recent experimental evidence suggests that undergraduate students' behavior is consistent with this "myopic loss aversion" conjecture. Our...

This research investigates various unresolved issues regarding futures markets, using formal methods appropriate for inferring causal relationships from observational data when some relevant quantities are hidden. We find no evidence supporting the generalized version of Keynes's theory of...

Using Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG's) and Error Correction Models we study the dynamics of the notoriously volatile international freight prices that comprise the Baltic Panamax Index, the index on which freight futures trading is based. The DAG's are used to make definitive statements about the...

Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG's) and Error Correction Models (ECM's) are employed to analyze questions of price discovery between spatially separated commodity markets and the transportation market linking them together. Results from our analysis suggest these markets are highly interconnected...

Economic theory is replete with causal hypotheses that are scarcely tested because economists are generally constrained to work with observational data. This article describes the use of causal inference methods for testing a hypothesis that one random variable causes another. Contingent on a...

This paper presents a manageable and effective way of nesting two popular, yet distinct approaches to obtain optimal hedging ratios - time-series econometrics (GARCH) and dynamic programming (DP). The nested DP-GARCH model is then compared to a DP-GARCH model that accounts for variability in the...

Various bid-ask spread estimators are applied to transaction data from LIFFE commodity futures markets, and the resulting estimates are compared to observed actual bid-ask spreads. Results suggest that actual bid-ask spreads, unlike effective spreads, can be reasonably estimated using...