Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112117
Woongchan Jeon, Kieran James Walsh
{"title":"Heterogeneity and macroeconomic state dependence in the spending response to stimulus","authors":"Woongchan Jeon, Kieran James Walsh","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112117","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112117","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We explore how households’ stimulus spending varies by income under different macroeconomic conditions over 2020–2021. We document a shift in the spending distribution from a declining pattern with a high average spending response to a U-shaped one with weaker responses and spending rising with income over much of the distribution. We argue that during crisis times like 2020, binding liquidity constraints render poorer households anxious to consume, while in more normalized economies (2021), they prioritize saving or servicing debts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112117"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112124
Tong Liu , Yanlin Shi
{"title":"News sentiment and investment risk management: Innovative evidence from the large language models","authors":"Tong Liu , Yanlin Shi","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112124","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112124","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper reexamines the significance of news sentiment in explaining stock return volatility persistence and its role in driving underlying volatility states. Our simulation study demonstrates that more accurately measured news sentiment has a greater impact on volatility dynamics. Using data from firms in the Dow Jones Composite Average index spanning 2019–2023, we compare news sentiment classified by GPT-4 with that classified by RavenPack. Our findings show that both negative and positive firm-specific and macroeconomic news significantly affect intraday stock return volatility. The classification accuracy achieved by employing GPT-4 potentially surpasses that of using RavenPack.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112124"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112121
Agha Mureed Ahemed , Umer Iqbal , Mian Muhammad Atif
{"title":"Asymmetric cost behavior and financial distress","authors":"Agha Mureed Ahemed , Umer Iqbal , Mian Muhammad Atif","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112121","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112121","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this study, we investigate the effect of asymmetric cost behavior (ACB) on financial distress. In ACB, managers’ deliberate decision to retain idle resources creates an inflexible cost structure, which leads to financial distress. Using a sample of 107,021 firm-year observations from 12,850 U.S. listed non-financial firms over the period from 1987 to 2020, our findings reveal a positive relationship between ACB and financial distress. This relationship is driven by managerial optimism and overconfidence, as theorized in behavioral finance and the management optimism hypothesis. These results contribute to the growing understanding of how cognitive biases impact corporate financial decisions, particularly in firms facing financial distress, and underscore the importance of effective cost management in reducing the risks associated with ACB.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112121"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143165743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112174
Minwook Kang
{"title":"Endogenous growth driven by government spending under quasi-hyperbolic discounting","authors":"Minwook Kang","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112174","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112174","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the impact of government spending on economic growth within a quasi-hyperbolic discounting framework, integrating Barro’s (1990) and Laibson’s (1997) models. It highlights the negative effects of present bias on optimal government spending and endogenous growth rates.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112174"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166070","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112177
Ulrich Hounyo , Zhi Liu , Rasmus T. Varneskov
{"title":"A modified wild bootstrap procedure for Laplace transforms of volatility","authors":"Ulrich Hounyo , Zhi Liu , Rasmus T. Varneskov","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112177","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112177","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this note, we propose a modified wild (MW) bootstrap-based procedure for the realized Laplace transform (RLT) of volatility. We establish its first-order asymptotic validity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112177"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112127
Vivian Zhao
{"title":"Free food for thought: The effect of universal free school meals on graduation rates in the US","authors":"Vivian Zhao","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112127","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112127","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper evaluates the impact of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) – which expanded free school meal access at low-income schools across the US – on high school graduation rates. Using education and demographic data, I compare within-school outcomes between 2011 and 2020. I find that CEP improved graduation rates by 1.506 percentage points (<em>p = 0.024</em>) at schools where a lower percentage of students were originally eligible for free or reduced-price meals. Further analysis shows that a single year of exposure improved graduation rates by 1.373 percentage points (<em>p = 0.040</em>) and exposure for over a year increased graduation rates by 1.787 percentage points (<em>p = 0.039</em>).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112127"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112140
Toyoichiro Shirota
{"title":"Optimal monetary policy under fairness concerns in pricing","authors":"Toyoichiro Shirota","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112140","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112140","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the implications of fairness concerns in pricing for optimal monetary policy. Building on the fair-pricing model of Eyster et al. (2001), it derives a utility-based welfare loss function and identifies two key findings. First, fairness concerns shift the policy objective from stabilizing inflation, as emphasized in New Keynesian models, to minimizing and stabilizing perceived unfairness. Second, the analysis uncovers a novel disinflationary bias under discretionary policy, which contrasts with the inflationary bias widely discussed in the literature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112140"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112075
Yu Yan , Yan Tong , Yiming Wang
{"title":"Validity of CARA function under expected utility","authors":"Yu Yan , Yan Tong , Yiming Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112075","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112075","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper assumes that the agent will make the same decision regarding a risk game involving a little bit of money at different levels of wealth. Under this assumption, we prove that as long as the agent’s utility function is in the form of expected utility, then the agent’s utility function is the constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) utility function. This suggests that the CARA utility function is likely the form that most closely approximates the true utility function under classical conditions. As application, this paper presents an asset pricing model with heterogeneous consumers with CARA utility function. It is found that the equity premium, the logarithmic return of risk assets minus the logarithmic return of risk-free assets, is a linear expression of the per capita consumption. The required relative risk aversion coefficient is about 4 within a reasonable range of 2 to 10.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112075"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112153
Vinicius Lima
{"title":"Group size, member selection, and performance: Evidence from legislative elections in Brazil","authors":"Vinicius Lima","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112153","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112153","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides empirical evidence on the causal effects of group size on member selection and performance. Using data from local legislative elections in Brazil in a difference-in-differences framework, I explore an electoral reform that reduced the maximum number of candidates allowed in coalitions disputing legislative seats. The reform did not change the number of candidates and parties in the election, which was possible because in municipalities affected by the new cap parties reorganized into 21% more coalitions than would be expected without the reform. I discuss how the heterogeneity of the candidates combined with the coalitions’ adjustment to the reform led to the election of city councilors who were 17% wealthier, on average. Although the reform achieved the goal of reducing campaign costs, which fell by 9%, the election of wealthier politicians was an unintended consequence that weakened the representation of economically disadvantaged groups in the legislative body.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112153"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-02-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112146
M. Ali Khan , Haomiao Yu , Zhixiang Zhang
{"title":"A simple proof of Blackwell’s theorem on the comparison of experiments for a general state space","authors":"M. Ali Khan , Haomiao Yu , Zhixiang Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112146","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112146","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper offers, for a general state space, a simple proof of the equivalence between Blackwell <em>sufficiency</em> and the Bohnenblust–Shapley–Sherman criterion of <em>more-informativeness</em>. The proof relies on nothing more than the finite intersection property of compact sets. While several proofs exist for finite state spaces, infinite spaces, as necessitated in applications with continuous distributions, is explored by Boll (1955), Amershi (1988) (but for a finite-dimensional action set), and reviewed in LeCam’s foundational rubric for the subject. We offer two examples to show the fragility of Boll’s definition of the second criterion, and the necessity of his assumption of absolute continuity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"247 ","pages":"Article 112146"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143166185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}