Posts filed under ‘Former Guest Bloggers’
Stuck on the Methodological Hamster Wheel
| Craig Pirrong |
I’ve read John Cassidy’s New Yorker article (not available online) in which he described his journey to the freshwater provinces in his attempt to see whether the financial crisis had caused Chicago economists to reject their reactionary views. (With one exception, the answer is blessedly “no.”) I’ve also read his paean to Pigou in the WSJ. So I pretty much knew what to expect when I picked up his How Markets Fail. Let’s say I wasn’t disappointed, in the sense that my very low expectations were met.
The book is a very conventional, Stiglitz-esque critique of market economics and those who defend markets. The latter are always described with Homer-esque modifiers, just so you’ll know that they [we!] are retrograde knuckle draggers. (more…)
Corporations Are People Too
| Craig Pirrong |
Legally, in some respects, anyways. That was a key issue in the recent Supreme Court decision re McCain-Feingold (see Dick’s post). I don’t have a lot to say about the specifics of the decision, as campaign finance law is way too arcane for me. Suffice it to say that I am inherently skeptical about any regulation regarding elections designed by incumbent politicians. People yammer about conflicts of interest all the time, but there’s a colossal one for you.
I just wanted to make a quick point about a debate between Stevens and Scalia carried out in the opinion and the dissent. Stevens noted that the Founders were deeply skeptical of corporations. Indeed so. Scalia noted that there are so many corporations today. Also true. The interesting question is how we got from A (Stevens) to B (Scalia).
The story is told in the North, Wallis and Weingast natural-state book Violence and Social Orders I’ve blogged about several times over at Streetwise Professor, mostly in the context of Russia. The relevant chapter is primarily based on John Wallis’s work. The basic story is that hostility to corporations — reflected very well in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations — was due to the fact that historically, English corporations were created by the crown, and were essentially very profitable favors provided to the politically connected. They were, in NWW terms, part of the “closed order” of the natural state, in which access to certain contracting forms was limited to a select powerful few. This animus towards corporations was inherited in the United States, but in the early years of the 19th century, state legislatures confronting issues associated with the financing of new infrastructure turned the corporate form into a prop of an open-order system in which this contracting form was made available to all. Rather than limit the right of incorporation to an elite, they made it available to everybody. The system changed from one in which legislatures had to grant every incorporation, to one in which pretty much anybody could incorporate if they met a set of general, universally applicable requirements. Hence, the proliferation of corporations. (more…)
Deja Vu?
| Craig Pirrong |
Writing near to the event, in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Schumpeter argued that policy shocks, and policy uncertainty generally, lengthened the Great Depression:
The subnormal recovery to 1935, the subnormal prosperity to 1937 and the slump after that are easily accounted for by the difficulties incident to a new fiscal policy, the new labor legislation and a general change in the attitude of government to private enterprise all of which can, in a sense to be defined later, be distinguished from the working of the productive apparatus as such.
Since misunderstandings at this point would be especially undesirable, I wish to emphasize that the last sentence does not in itself imply either an adverse criticism of the New Deal policies or the proposition — which I do believe to be true but which I do not need right now — that policies of that type are in the long run incompatible with the effective working of the system of private enterprise. All I mean to imply is that so extensive and rapid a change in the social scene naturally affects productive performance for a time, and so much the most ardent New Dealer must and also can admit. I for one do not see how it would otherwise be possible for the fact that this country which had the best chance of recovering quickly was precisely the one to experience the most unsatisfactory recovery. [Emphasis in original]
Some of the specifics are different (e.g., health care legislation vs. labor legislation) but the overall thrust of Schumpeter’s analysis of the 1930s is quite applicable today. An “extensive and rapid change in the social scene” is currently in progress, and like Schumpeter, I believe that “policies of [the] type [being considered] are in the long run incompatible with the effective working of the system of private enterprise.” And even if you don’t buy into that, as Schumpeter notes, just the massive rise in uncertainty associated with this policy ferment is sufficient to impede measured economic performance because it is rational for businesses and individuals to delay investment and hiring decisions until the uncertainty is resolved.
Socialist Calculation Meets the OTC Markets
| Craig Pirrong |
A new Federal Reserve Bank of NY staff report by Darrell Duffie, Ada Li, and Theo Lubke, “Policy Perspectives on OTC Derivatives Market Infrastructure” has received a lot of attention in the press.
There are some good things in the paper. Notably, it is suitably cautionary about the potential systemic risks posed by central counterparties, and the consequent need for prudential regulation thereof. It also makes a good case for data repositories, and for the role of the Fed and other government agencies in reducing the costs that intermediaries incur to coordinate risk-reducing actions, such as portfolio compression and improvements in the process of confirming deals.
But overall the paper is extremely disappointing. Its tone is Olympian and prescriptive. The word “should” is used 61 times 21 pages of text (that includes several space-eating tables and charts).
This is extremely dangerous because these prescriptions and dictates are not based on a a rigorous analysis of costs and benefits. Most disturbingly, there is virtually no discussion whatsoever of the informational demands inherent in the prescriptions. We’re told that regulators should set the right capital and collateral requirements on non-cleared deals, and that CCPs should maintain “high collateral standards.” (more…)
A Tale of Two Papers, or, Humpty Dumpty Writes About Exchanges
| Craig Pirrong |
The American Economic Association/American Finance Association Meetings are just about over. I made a quick trip there to comment on a paper. Upon returning home, I downloaded a couple of the papers presented that seemed of interest. Good call on one, bad call on the other.
The bad one is “Centralized versus Over The Counter Markets” by Viral Acharya of LBS and NYU, and Alberto Bisin of NYU. Although the motivation of the paper is admirable, the execution is execrable, and is representative of a lot of what is wrong in the profession.
The motivation is to compare the efficiencies of alternative ways of organizing derivatives trades: centralized exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) markets. Great. Big question. I’ve written a lot about it, and would be very interested in seeing other takes thoughtful on the subject.
The paper concludes that organized exchanges are (constrained) first best efficient, and more efficient than OTC markets. A quick review of the paper makes it clear, however, that they’ve rigged the game to produce that result. (more…)
Happy Keynesian New Year
| Craig Pirrong |
Keynes and Hayek were major adversaries in the 1930s, but it is interesting to note that they shared some important ideas in common, but drew diametrically opposed conclusions from them.
In particular, Hayek, and the Austrians generally, believed in radical uncertainty, in the sense that individual economic agents had too little information about the world to assess probabilities of states of the world, or even to identify the possible states. Keynes similarly believed in the inability of individuals to evaluate investments in a rigorous quantitative way. Keynes concluded that this made investors subject to radical shifts in sentiment and “animal spirits” that could cause an autonomous collapse in investment. (more…)
The Age of Constructivism
| Craig Pirrong |
I am reading Vernon Smith’s Rationality in Economics. I highly, highly recommend it. Largely a homage to Hayek, it explores the implications of Hayek’s distinction between constructivist rationality and what Smith relabels ecological rationality. It contains a wealth of methodological and substantive insights. Smith is knowledgeable and thoughtful. He is almost John Stuart Mill-like in his even handed and fair characterizations of competing views, even those he disagrees with. He integrates experimental economics, game theory, institutional economics, neoclassical economics, neurology, and much, much more.
What fascinates Smith is the ineffable process by which an ecologically rational order emerges from the actions of myriad imperfectly informed and incompletely rational (in the constructivist sense) individuals. This process — a sort of economic transubstantiation — is the most fascinating economic mystery. It is also, alas, one that has received far too little attention from economists whose formal tools permit them to analyze (constructively) equilibrium, but which are virtually powerless to analyze the process of getting there; the proverbial drunks looking for their keys under the lamppost.
We live in an era of constructivism regnant. In health care and finance, especially, constructivist schemes will reshape for better or worse — and almost certainly worse — vast swathes of the American economy. What’s more troubling still, this is constructivism refracted through the flawed lens of politics and public choice. Appreciation of the emergent order, the ecologically rational, is sadly rare. Vernon Smith appreciates it, deeply, with an almost religious sense of awe. Read his book and you will appreciate it too.
A Piece on Financial Derivatives Regulation in FT Alphaville
| Craig Pirrong |
FT Alphaville, one of the Financial Times’ blogs, kindly asked me to contribute a guest post on the financial-markets regulation legislation currently working it’s way through Congress. (Thanks, Stacy-Marie.) Here’s what I wrote:
Lawmakers in DC are due to resume debate on major financial-reform legislation currently working its way through the US House of Representatives. One closely watched aspect of that debate is sweeping overhaul of over-the-counter derivatives markets. Lawmakers are pushing to mandate that most derivatives be centrally cleared and traded either on exchanges or swap execution facilities. Professor Craig Pirrong of the University of Houston discusses some of the proposals.
In attempting to impose standardization on the ways that derivatives are traded, and derivatives counterparty risks are managed and shared, the legislation reflects a one-size-fits-all mentality (not to say fetish) that is sadly typical of most legislative attempts to construct markets. These standardization directives fail to recognize that market participants are diverse, with diverse needs and preferences, and that as a consequence, it is desirable to have diverse trading mechanisms to accommodate them. (more…)
Lynch ‘Em
| Craig Pirrong |
I’ve had several calls from reporters asking my opinion on the Lynch Amendment to Barney Frank’s derivatives-regulation bill. For some reason, Forrest Gump pops into my head every time that question is asked. You know, the part where he says “stupid is as stupid does.”
As I am sure you all know, the amendment, introduced by New Jersey representative Stephen Lynch, imposes restrictions on the ownership and control of the clearinghouses that the Frank bill will require the vast bulk of derivatives to be traded through. The amendment imposes similar restrictions on ownership of exchanges and swap execution facilities.
Specifically, the amendment defines a class of “restricted owners” that includes swap dealers and major swap participants, and limits the amount of a clearinghouse (or execution facility or exchange) that these restricted owners can own or control collectively to 20 percent. The justification for this limitation is to reduce conflicts of interest, the specific nature of which are not identified.
This represents yet another example of Congressional micromanagement of the organization and governance of financial institutions. In my view, it is incredibly wrong-headed. (more…)
Further My Last
| Craig Pirrong |
My previous post on the Acharya et al (AEFLS) assertion of the purported externality in bilateral OTC markets focused on whether there was actually an unpriced “bad.” I judged otherwise based on the fact that credit and counterparty risks are repriced repeatedly (and ruthlessly).
There is another reason to reject their analysis. It should be incumbent on one who justifies the existence of an externality to justify a particular policy to (a) identify the transactions costs that preclude internalization of this externality, and (b) demonstrate that their policy would create a net benefit, by, for instance, reducing transactions costs. AEFLS don’t even try to do this (another symptom of the Nirvana fallacy). And when one examines the particulars, it is highly doubtful that the costs of the purported externality are as large as AEFLS insinuate that they are.
The AEFLS story is that contracts between two counterparties to an OTC derivatives deal impose costs on other market participants, notably, the firms’ other counterparties to earlier derivatives deals, and the counterparties’ counterparties, and on and on. OTC market participants don’t take these costs into account, trade too much, and create too much risk.
Which raises the Coase Question: if these costs are so large, why don’t the affected parties craft a solution that mitigates them? If, as AEFLS argue, a central counterparty would reduce these costs, why don’t the affected parties create one to internalize the externality and enhance their welfare? (more…)
Nirvana Is Just a Band
| Craig Pirrong |
Last week I wrote about one justification for exchange trading and clearing mandates in derivatives markets — the market power argument. This week I’ll examine another argument, and render a similarly skeptical verdict.
In a chapter of Restoring Financial Stability, Viral Acharya, Rob Engle, Steve Figlewski, Anthony Lynch and Marti Subrahmanyam argue that bilateral transactions in OTC derivatives markets involve an externality. Their argument is not stated that clearly, but FWIW here it is verbatim:
[A]ll OTC contracts . . . feature collateral or margin requirements, wherein counterparties post a deposit whose aim is to minimize counterparty risk. The deposit is marked to market daily, based on fluctuations in the value of the underlying contract and the creditworthiness of the counterparties . . . . The difficulty, however, is that such collateral arrangements are negotiated on a bilateral basis. Parties in each contract do not take full account of the fact that counterparty risk they are prepared to undertake in a contract also affects other players; indeed, they often cannot take account of this counterparty risk externality in an OTC setting, due to inadequate transparency about the counterparty’s positions and its interconnections with the rest of the market. While bilateral collateral arrangements do respond to worsening credit risk of a counterparty, such response is often tied to agency ratings, which are sluggish in capturing credit risk information and potentially inaccurate.
An externality means that some cost or benefit is not priced. By invoking the concept of externality Acharya et al (“AEFLS”) are asserting that something — a bad in this instance — isn’t priced. They are a very vague on just what this is, but here’s my interpretation of what they mean.
A firm that has already entered into financial contracts affects the risk exposure of its existing counterparties when it enters into new deals. A firm that has a large number of commitments outstanding can enter into additional contracts that substantially increase its riskiness, thereby harming the incumbent counterparties. The cost imposed on these incumbent counterparties isn’t, in this telling, priced. (more…)
Just So Stories: Financial Regulation Edition
| Craig Pirrong |
All of the legislative proposals relating to over-the-counter derivatives would impose seismic changes on the way that these instruments are traded, and the performance risks related to them are managed. Indeed, it is fair to say that these proposals, if implemented would dramatically shrink the OTC market, and perhaps destroy it altogether. Under either the House (Frank) or Senate (Dodd) bills, most derivatives would have to be traded on exchanges, and be cleared. (Clearing is a way of mutualizing default risks. At present, default risks in a particular contract are directly limited to the buyer and seller.) (BTW, when you hear “Frank and Dodd” do you think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? I do. Does this inspire confidence? Self-answering question.) These efforts are strongly supported by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, CFTC head Gary Gensler, and SEC head Mary Shapiro.
These legislative proposals are clearly predicated on a very strong belief: participants in the derivatives markets routinely chose the wrong institutional arrangements. That this immense market is and was in fact arguably the largest market failure in financial history. (more…)
On the Border*
| Craig Pirrong |
This is my inaugural post as guest blogger here at O&M. I am grateful for the opportunity.
In his very gracious introduction, Peter Klein noted that my research is at the border of finance and industrial organization. Quite true (and indeed, “borderer” is a good description of me overall.)
That border is very, very busy today. Indeed, so much is happening there that it is difficult to keep up. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, Congress and regulators are beavering away on laws and regulations that will completely reshape the organization and regulation of financial markets, and especially of the area of particular interest to me — derivatives.
I anticipate that many of my O&M blog posts will explore these issues, but I’ll start with something very topical. Senator Chris Dodd just yesterday heaved up a 1,136-page proposed financial regulation bill, and one proposal that is attracting considerable attention is his plan to consolidate banking regulators. Dodd is not alone in thinking along these lines. Even before the financial crisis, there were myriad proposals to consolidate various regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These have only gained in popularity in light of the crisis.
In the modern financial markets, firms are big and complex, and operate in many markets (defined geographically, or by product). It is difficult to fit a big financial firm into any box. A Goldman Sachs deals in the securities markets and the derivatives markets. So it doesn’t fit comfortably in a securities box, or a derivatives box, so in the current system for regulatory purposes the firm is split into pieces, some of which are put into the securities box and others into the derivatives box (and there are many other boxes too for a big firm like Goldman).
This leads to potential for conflicting regulations, jurisdictional disputes, regulatory arbitrage, and other problems. So, the Dodd proposal — and most of the other consolidation proposals — advocate creating really big boxes, and in the extreme, one big box that regulates everything a financial firm does.
The problems of the seen are well known (though arguably exaggerated). What concerns me are the largely unexamined problems of the as-yet-unseen big-box alternative. (more…)
The Guest Bloggers Are Dead; Long Live the Guest Blogger!
| Peter Klein |
Today we say thanks, and farewell, to guest bloggers Russ Coff and Glenn MacDonald for their thoughtful and provocative posts (archived here and here), and we welcome Craig Pirrong as our newest guest blogger. Craig is Professor of Finance and Energy Markets Director of the Global Energy Management Institute at the Bauer College of Business, University of Houston. He has also taught at Michigan, Washington University, and Chicago (where he got his PhD in 1987, working under Lester Telser). Craig’s work lies at the border of financial economics and industrial organization, and he has written extensively on financial and commodity markets, derivatives, energy, and the organization of exchange institutions, among other topics. Transaction cost economists will remember his influential 1993 paper on bulk shipping, which developed the concept of “temporal specificity,” and his 1995 paper on commodity exchanges. He also blogs at Streetwise Professor.
Thanks again, Russ and Glenn, and welcome, Craig!
Hoisted from the Comments: Hoopes on Williamson
| Peter Klein |
Former guest blogger David Hoopes’s comment deserves its own post:
So, we’re leaving the serious discussion to our goody two-shoes organizations twin? Was Will Mitchell a Williamson student? No one has said anything about Teece. Teece’s early JEBO articles did a great job talking about economies of scope and transaction cost influences on strategy.
Unmentioned yet, there has been some contentious discussion about the implications of TC economics on strategy and organization. Many including Connor and Prahalad consider the implications of TC to lead to bad management and bad strategy. However, our very own Steve Postrel wrote a great paper, “Islands of Shared Knowledge” that (esp in an earlier version) does a great job of comparing and contrasting the RBV and TC as theories of the firm.
Harold Demsetz weighed in on this earlier in his, “Theory of the Firm Revisited” (which is one of my favorite all time papers). Harold argues that firms would exist without governance problems. Steve has tried to get Harold to see the light (i’m not sure i do) but to no avail.
Of course, CERTAIN org theorists, whose names i do not mention think that Williamson’s logic, as does all competition-based economic theory, leads to evil and terrible results: unethical business students who become tomorrow’s headlines.
I’m very happy to see Williamson win. His influence on strategy and organization is immense. And, at this point, I don’t see any theory of the competitive firm can reasonably leave him out. I will admit, in terms of competitive heterogeneity and competitive advantage I don’t think governance is anywhere near as important as productive capabilities. BUT, capabilities literature still has a lot of work to do to be specified as exactly as TCE.
David, more serious discussion is on the way. Unfortunately, we O&Mers have higher opportunity costs than the bloggers at our good-twin site, so we can’t get the posts up as quickly as they can. :-)
Need Examples of Subversive Behavior in M&A
| Russ Coff |
I just finished teaching a simulation exercise to BBA students on the politics of post-acquisition integration. I was surprised that students had a great deal of trouble believing that managers would be subversive even in that kind of setting. If there are specific examples of such subversive behavior that you know about, I’d appreciate it if you would post here or email them to me.
Here are some details about the exercise (and a Dilbert cartoon) in case anyone is interested. (more…)
Bankrupt Bankruptcy
| Glenn MacDonald |
The US bankruptcy process is designed to be an orderly way to preserve any value that is left in the bankrupt business, and treat the creditors fairly and consistent with their contractual rights. This process has been honed through use and generally functions highly effectively. The point of preserving value is obvious enough. Fair treatment of creditors is not about fairness per se, but rather about investor investor protection generally, i.e., in the US, to promote efficient credit markets, investors are generally well protected, including in bankruptcies. The recent GM bankruptcy is an interesting case of how this process can be made to fail, mainly through rushing the process and dictating its outcome rather than by letting the process do what it was designed to do.
Specifically, much value was wasted. For example, among car aficionados, there are few brands more revered than the Pontiac GTO; this persists despite the weak offering brought out in 2004. Where is the GTO? On the scrap heap with the rest of Pontiac. A more deliberate bankruptcy would have preserved this value, e.g., by folding parts of Pontiac into Chevrolet. Second, GM’s creditors rightly claimed they were wronged by allowing the sale of all good GM assets to the new GM, owned mostly by the government and the UAW, and denying them the rights to argue their case to the bankrupcy court. They correctly argue they were robbed.
Who are the main beneficiaries of this mess? To the extent that despite the poor reorganization, GM is actually worth something, obviously the Federal government and the UAW benefit from the treatment of creditors. But more importantly, this is terrific for GM’s competitors, who have much to gain from GM’s remaining value being wasted through a weak product line, politically driven lack of cost reduction as inefficient facilities are retained, etc.
Climate Change Economics
| Glenn MacDonald |
Some thoughts about how carbon emissions will evolve. Assume carbon emissions cause climate change. (Obviously this is controversial. But I have nothing new to add to this and so am willing to grant this assumption.) There are two fundamental economic forces at work. One is that emissions are a classical prisoners’ dilemma. That is, reducing emissions is costly, and the benefits to any one country are mainly enjoyed by others. Thus, in equilibrium, there will not be a lot of effort devoted to reducing emissions. Getting around this would require either some sort of external enforcement, e.g., the United Nations (pause for laughter!), or some approach based on repeated interaction; unfortunately the latter requires more patience and information than is realistic in this situation. Thus, consistent with the data, emissions will grow, and, per my assumption, climate change will ensue. Second, tastes for amenities such as clean air appear to be normal goods, maybe even luxuries. Individuals in China, eastern Europe, . . . appear to have little interest in these amenities, given what they might have to forego to have them, whereas many in the US, Canada, western Europe, . . . seem more inclined to pay a little more for green goods and services. Thus, efforts to reduce emissions will grow as more and more countries prosper sufficiently that their inhabitants are willing to forgo consumption for cleaner air, etc. So, from an economic perspective, the most realistic way to fewer carbon emissions and (per my assumption) less climate effects is through the aggressive promotion of activities that promote growth: free trade, democracy, economic freedom, reduced taxes, regulations and tariffs, protection of property rights. . . . Interestingly, freeing individuals to pursue their interests is likely the best practical/realitic approach to what, at first blush, seems like a classical case for collective action.
Wanted: Human Capital Research(ers)
| Russ Coff |
Human Capital Interest Group? First a self-serving announcement. I’m part of an effort to create a new SMS interest group on Human Capital & Competitive Advantage (HC&CA). I need to gauge interest and identify people who would want to be involved if the proposal moves forward. We need people who are interested in: 1) Program Chair or Associate Program Chair, 2) Launch Planning Committee, or 3) Friends of HC&CA (email list). Please nominate yourself or others here.
General Human Capital and Competitive Advantage. Now for the meat: Why I think human capital is such fertile ground. Strategy research tends to adopt very unrealistic assumptions about markets for human capital. As a result, shorthand like “firm-specific” human capital inaccurately reflects its strategic potential. (more…)
Postrel on Competitive Advantage
| Peter Klein |
Former guest blogger Steve Postrel gave an interesting presentation at last week’s AoM Professional Development Workshop on competitive advantage: “Competitive Advantage: Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It.” Steve sent me the slides and was happy to share them here. Add your questions and comments below.
Steve provides a set of conditions that must be met for competitive advantage to be internally consistent and operationally meaningful, then presents his own (unique) definition, a simple and precise formulation in terms of gains from trade:
Seller 1 has competitive advantage over Seller 2 with respect to a specific transaction if and only if the economic surplus (gains from trade = V – C) from a transaction between 1 and the buyer is greater than the surplus from a transaction between 2 and the buyer. The difference in surplus is the CA.
A series of implications, qualifications, and applications follows. What do you think?
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