Economics LettersPub Date : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-08-26DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113199
Daniel A. Dias
{"title":"Do Ryder Cup captains randomize? Evidence from Sunday singles orders","authors":"Daniel A. Dias","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113199","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113199","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Professional sports offer rare field tests of game theory with observed choices, sharp incentives, and expert competitors. Ryder Cup Sunday singles is a simultaneous permutation game where captains order twelve players and pairings form slot by slot. Under Hurley (2002)’s benchmark, uniform random ordering is a mixed-strategy equilibrium of the constant-sum game, and therefore also a minimax strategy. Using Sunday singles orders from 1981–2025 and, where available, Data Golf and OWGR ranks before each Cup, I test whether within-team ability is assigned uniformly at random across lineup slots. Permutation tests reject uniform random assignment. The data indicate that stronger players appear earlier than random shuffles within teams predict, with the pattern more pronounced in later Ryder Cups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113199"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148854080","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}
{"title":"GVC participation and inflation in the European Union","authors":"Mariam Camarero, Antonia López-Villavicencio, Cecilio Tamarit","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113217","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113217","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines how participation in global value chains (GVCs) shapes inflation in the European Union over 1995–2023. Using local projections, we trace the dynamic response of producer- and consumer-price inflation to total, backward, and forward GVC shocks across core, peripheral, and CEEC economies. The aggregate response at the producer-price level is disinflationary and concentrated in the backward channel, supporting the discipline-on-prices hypothesis. A marked PPI–HICP wedge emerges in peripheral economies, where producer-level gains do not reach consumers, while forward linkages feed demand-pull pressures on consumer prices in both core and CEEC suppliers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113217"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935181","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113208
Joonho Hwang
{"title":"On the bracketing relationship in staggered treatment designs","authors":"Joonho Hwang","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113208","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113208","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Researchers often use fixed-effects and lagged-dependent-variable (LDV) estimates as upper and lower bounds on a treatment effect. This paper studies this comparison in staggered-treatment designs and shows that the conventional ordering of the two estimates is not generally preserved. The direction of the difference depends on cohort- and event-time-specific treatment effects, outcome persistence, and the alignment of treatment timing with unit and time heterogeneity. Thus, either estimator may serve as the lower or upper bound, and the ordering may vary across group-time cells. Monte Carlo simulations further show that the interval formed by the two realized point estimates frequently fails to contain the true group-time average treatment effect in finite samples. The results suggest that fixed-effects and LDV estimates should be viewed as a descriptive comparison rather than as guaranteed bounds.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113208"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935208","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-03DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113222
Jiwen Guo, Jialiang Xu
{"title":"Tariff shocks and land sales: evidence from China’s cities","authors":"Jiwen Guo, Jialiang Xu","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113222","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113222","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies whether local governments use land sales to buffer trade shocks. Combining land transactions for 275 Chinese cities over 2015–2023 with a Bartik measure of US tariff exposure, we find that more exposed cities raise land-sale revenue after the US-China trade war through higher average prices rather than greater aggregate land area. The price increase reflects two channels: a shift toward high-grade land driven primarily by area expansion, and a within-use price increase in commercial-residential land with no corresponding area response. Mechanism analysis shows that tariff shocks weaken local economic activity and intensify fiscal pressure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113222"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935174","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113221
Whelsy Boungou, Alhonita Yatie
{"title":"Cryptocurrency uncertainty and bank intermediation","authors":"Whelsy Boungou, Alhonita Yatie","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113221","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113221","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rapid expansion of cryptocurrency markets has intensified interactions between digital assets and traditional financial institutions, raising important questions about the implications of cryptocurrency-related uncertainty for banking activities. This paper investigates how cryptocurrency uncertainty shapes banks' funding, lending, and risk-taking decisions. Using a panel of 8330 banks across 129 countries over the period 2009–2018, we examine the relationship between cryptocurrency uncertainty and key dimensions of banks' balance-sheet decisions. We find that heightened cryptocurrency uncertainty increases customer deposits while reducing lending activity, non-performing loans, and risk-weighted assets. These findings suggest that banks respond to cryptocurrency uncertainty by adopting more conservative balance-sheet decisions characterized by stronger funding positions, lower credit expansion, and reduced risk exposure. The results remain robust to alternative measures of cryptocurrency uncertainty and lending activity. Our findings highlight that cryptocurrency uncertainty generates significant spillover effects on traditional financial intermediation and should be incorporated into macroprudential surveillance frameworks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113221"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935175","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-02DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113207
M. Ali Choudhary, Vasco J. Gabriel
{"title":"Idle monetary policy? Evidence from monetary policy shocks for Pakistan","authors":"M. Ali Choudhary, Vasco J. Gabriel","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113207","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113207","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We challenge the narrative of idle monetary transmission in Pakistan. By cleansing conventional policy measures of anticipatory and endogenous motives à la Romer and Romer (2004), and using local projections in long differences (Jordá and Taylor, 2025; Piger and Stockwell, 2025), Piger and Stockwell, 2025], we trace the effects of monetary shocks on macroeconomic and financial outcomes while controlling for the global financial cycle (Miranda-Agrippino and Rey, 2020). A contractionary shock generates a large and persistent output contraction and a significant, non-monotone response of year-on-year inflation, with disinflation on impact and again after eight to nine quarters. The policy rate rises in the short run, while term-spread and credit responses are economically coherent but less precisely estimated. US monetary spillovers are small and statistically imprecise. Monetary policy works in Pakistan; only its measurement was idle.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113207"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935180","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-08-27DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113195
Dario Bonciani, Frantisek Masek, Paolo Nanni, Giulio Tarquini
{"title":"Bounded rationality, monetary policy, and the scars of supply shocks","authors":"Dario Bonciani, Frantisek Masek, Paolo Nanni, Giulio Tarquini","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113195","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113195","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Bounded rationality reshapes monetary-policy trade-offs in response to supply shocks in a New Keynesian model with endogenous growth. A negative supply shock depresses innovation and future productivity, which gives rise to long-run scarring and persistent inflationary pressures. Under rational expectations, tighter monetary policy eases the initial rise in inflation but amplifies the fall in demand, innovation, and productivity. Under bounded rationality, households underreact to future income losses. This weakens the negative wealth effect and mitigates the decline in demand and growth. As a result, tighter monetary policy can contain inflation without generating large scarring effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113195"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148951886","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-08-18DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113197
Hao Zhang, Lina Shi
{"title":"When patents become collateral: Intellectual property financialization and corporate venture capital investment","authors":"Hao Zhang, Lina Shi","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113197","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113197","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines whether patent-backed financing reforms affect firms’ external technology acquisition strategies. Using the staggered rollout of China’s Patent Pledge Financing Pilot (PPFP) across cities, we employ a difference-in-differences design to study its effect on corporate venture capital (CVC) investment. We find that PPFP significantly increases firms’ CVC activity, with the effect concentrated in high-tech CVC, and weaker for state-owned enterprises. These findings are consistent with the view that increasing the financial value of patent assets strengthens firms’ incentives to engage in technology-oriented CVC for external technology sourcing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113197"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148854079","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 : 2026-09-01DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113214
Kenneth Fjell, John S. Heywood, Debashis Pal
{"title":"Common ownership with a location leader","authors":"Kenneth Fjell, John S. Heywood, Debashis Pal","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113214","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113214","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We investigate the impact of common ownership in a spatial price discrimination model with sequential location choice. In contrast to simultaneous location choice, an increase in common ownership need not reduce locational efficiency. Common ownership by the location leader improves locational efficiency, even restoring the first best.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113214"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935171","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 : 2026-09-01Epub Date: 2026-09-05DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113210
Yves Zenou
{"title":"How to determine key players when spillovers are large","authors":"Yves Zenou","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113210","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2026.113210","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper studies the behavior of Katz–Bonacich centrality and key-player intercentrality in linear–quadratic network games when spillovers are strong. Understanding this regime is both theoretically important and empirically relevant in environments where interactions are intense. We show that as spillovers become large, Katz–Bonacich centrality converges (up to scale) to the Perron eigenvector, while intercentrality diverges at the same rate for all nodes and becomes dominated by a common leading component. As a result, first-order proportional differences in intercentrality — normalized by the common divergent scale — vanish near the critical threshold. Rankings based on lower-order differences in intercentrality, or on post-removal activity and welfare levels, need not collapse and may remain stable even arbitrarily close to the boundary.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"268 ","pages":"Article 113210"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148935172","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}