This paper derives the optimal size and timing of interest rate target changes. Despite the simplicity of the optimal rule, we are able to replicate a number of puzzling features of interest rate targeting observe in practice, as well as explain some dynamic properties of market interest rates....

Cooperative and mutual organisational forms arise for reasons that include contracting problems between parties. Economic literature suggests a variety of allocative inefficiencies implied by these forms that largely have their origins in poor investment decisions. We demonstrate that a...

Incentive regulation allows decentralised decision-making under regulatory parameters set on the basis of industry characteristics. When there is uncertainty, sunk costs, and flexibility in the timing of investment a monopoly will invest later than is socially desirable because it garners only a...

This paper discusses banks' potential to increase their shareholders' welfare by attaching more importance to the environmental performance of farm borrowers. Sustainable farm lending can give banks' shareholders direct ESG (environmental, social and governance) benefits that offset any...

This paper presents a real-options model of entrenchment in which a CEO chooses how much effort to put into boosting a firm's productivity and the board and CEO bargain over executive-compensation and investment policies. The surplus that bargaining allocates derives from the reduction in value...

Enormous public investment will occur as communities adapt to climate change. Much of this investment will be irreversible and the future benefits are currently uncertain. The real options embedded in adaptation projects are therefore potentially important and their existence needs to be...

In this paper, we introduce an electricity market model and use it to explore the effect of climate change on electricity output and prices. It is calibrated to the New Zealand Electricity Market, and includes multiple generation fuels, uncertain fuel availability, and storage options. The model...

Most central banks currently implement monetary policy by targeting a short-term interest rate. This paper asks: "What is the optimal form for such interest rate targeting, given the objectives facing central banks?" We find the optimal rule is for the central bank to change the target rate...

Racehorse trainers operate unregulated asset management businesses in which the assets owned by outside clients compete with those owned by trainers for the latter's time, care and attention. However, market mechanisms appear to deal effectively with the resulting agency problem in situations...

Popular investment advice recommends that stock/bond and stock/wealth ratios should rise with investor risk tolerance and investment horizon respectively, prescriptions that are difficult to reconcile with the simple mean-variance model. We show that extending the mean-variance model to include...