This study aims to examine the effects of student loan debt on the decisions of U.S. married households to invest in stocks located in non-retirement accounts. Using longitudinal datasets from the 2011 to 2017 U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a fixed effects logit model, the results show mixed findings. The presence of student debt decreases the probability that married households will own stocks, but the amount of student debt does not show a statistically significant effect. The findings suggest that the incidence of student debt raises the perception of liquidity constraints and debt burden among married households.

The current study examines the performance of 76 Japanese equity Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) over the period 1/1/2018-12/31/2022. Performance is estimated in several ways, that is, raw returns, alphas from single- and multi-factor regression models, and risk-adjusted returns. The market timing skills of ETF managers are examined too. The results reveal that, on average, the examined ETFs do not produce any material alpha. The results also indicate that the risk factors suggested by Fama and French (1993 & 2015) are more or less capable of explaining the performance of the Japanese ETFs. Finally, the findings show that 21% of ETF managers possess some sort of market timing skills. However, the managers fail to time the volatility of the stock market.

Based on provincial panel data from 1998-2018, this paper estimates research and development (R&D) factors, and a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model is constructed to examine the effects of R&D factors on regional total factor productivity (TFP). The results show that both R&D capital stock and R&D personnel can significantly promote regional TFP, but the productivity-enhancing effect of R&D factors is different between regions. Specifically, R&D capital and R&D personnel can promote TFP in eastern and central provinces, and the promotion effect is not significant in western provinces. In addition, compared with investment-driven regions, innovation-driven regions are more likely to enhance TFP by R&D factors.

In this paper, we develop a model in which a monopolistic firm manufactures and sells a digital product, by incorporating digital rights management (DRM), quality degradation of pirated products, and government copyright enforcement into the consumer’s utility function. We determine the monopolist’s optimal pricing strategies and the appropriate DRM protection level through mathematical deduction. Our results show that when the government copyright enforcement is moderate and the quality of pirated products is relatively high, implementing a DRM system is optimal for the monopolist. However, in most other cases, DRM-free is better for the monopolist. This result may explain why DRM is not very popular in some industries. Our results suggest that choosing the right price, focusing on content innovation, and weakening DRM protection may be a better strategy for firms now. The results also indicate that DRM-free may be more prominent in the digital music industry than in the software and video games industries.

In this study, the time-varying pattern of returns with the trading cost is assessed in light of sanctions on the Russia’s economy. The analysis is performed on the Moscow Exchange Index (MOEX) using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, Bayes’ Theorem technique, and vector error correction model (VECM). Firstly, the transparency of asset’s value in the same trading period was noted to execute the trade with a limited price impact. Thus, the liquidity seems not priced in returns. In addition, the posterior probability of the transparent asset’s value stabilized the market at a limited transaction cost. In this case, there is less likelihood of liquidity acting as a risk element in returns during the same trading session. These results correspond to the era without sanctions, as well as economic restrictions period. Before the economic restrictions, the execution of investment occurred on its real or close value due to the market transparency in the following trading period. This implies, that the past trading cost series is not priced in yields on investment. During the Russia-related sanctions, a higher price impact of transaction was noted due to the ambiguity in the future asset’s value. Therefore, the past liquidity series is a pricing element in the short run and long run. The analysis suggests a potential inference of trading cost to determine the yield on investment.

The objectives and tasks of the European Central Bank (ECB) are defined in Articles 2 and 3 of Protocol (No 4) on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the European Central Bank (ECB). While in Article 3,1° of this Protocol other tasks are mentioned, the prime objective of the ESCB and therefore of the ECB, is price stability. This concept was originally specified by the Executive Board of the ECB as an annual increase of less than 2% in the inflation rate over the medium term, measured by the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area. This paper examines to what extent the ECB has been effective in realizing price stability over the period from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2022. Price stability is important for economic agents. It allows them to plan their savings, spending and investment eventually resulting in sustained economic growth.   Notwithstanding the commitment of large human and other resources and the use of unconventional monetary policies, the ECB did not realize its prime objective during a large part of this period. We conclude that putting too much confidence in DSGE-modeling as one of the methodologies to determine monetary policy, may have played an important role in the ECB not achieving its main statutory objective.

Spence’s signaling model (Spence, 1973) suggests that education can signal workers’ unobserved ability to employers thereby mitigating discrimination. There have been several studies concerning education’s impact on labor market discrimination against minority or disadvantaged groups. Our approach in this inquiry is unique in that we utilize the data of PhD recipients, a group of people with the highest education attainment, to test Spence’s theory. Another novelty of this paper is that in addition to examining possible discrimination against women and foreign-born, as has been done in previous studies, we further explore possible discrimination against the physically challenged individuals. Our baseline results show conflicting results that Ph.D. education can reduce discrimination against disability and foreign-born but not against gender. Further analysis by the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition shows that the wage gaps of gender and disability come more from the unobserved part than the explained part, while the foreign-born wage gap come more from the observable human capital differences. Since prejudice is an unobserved factor and we know that the disadvantaged groups are likely to suffer from prejudice (Oaxaca, 1973; Blinder, 1973; Montes-Rojas et al., 2017; Deshpande and Khanna, 2018), we conjecture that prejudice might be attributable to the unexplained part of the wage gaps. Furthermore, prejudice might be deeply rooted in one’s mind, thus difficult to remove even with the influence of education. Hence, our results reveal that it would be hard for Ph.D. education to eradicate the discrimination against gender and disability, but not against foreign-born.