PRICE MATCHING AND THE DOMINO EFFECT IN A RETAIL GASOLINE MARKET

Using gasoline station price data collected eight times per day for 103 d for 27 stations in Guelph, Ontario, it is found that, consistent with an informal theory of competitive gasoline pricing, stations set prices to match a small number of other stations. However, these matched stations are not necessarily the closest. While retailers frequently respond to price changes within 2 h, many take considerably longer. Finally, while price decreases do ripple across the market like falling dominos, increases propagate across the city based more on geographic location and source of price control than on proximity to leaders of these increases. ( JEL L13, L40, L81)     

Changes in Americans' Policy Preferences, 1935-1979

Using responses to 3,315 survey questions asked of nationalsamples, we examine how policy preferences of Americans havechanged over the last 45 years. The data indicate that therehas been considerable stability in public opinion: responsesto half the 613 repeated policy items show no significant changeat all; approximately half the detectable changes were lessthan 10 percentage points; and rarely did preferences fluctuatesignificantly back and forth within a short time period. Foreignpolicy changes were no larger or more frequent than domestic,but they did tend to occur more abruptly. When opinion shiftsoccurred, they were not random or capricious; they were usuallyrelated to important changes in citizens' social and economicenvironments. Rapid shifts generally coincided with major eventsin international affairs or the economy.     

Parameter Estimation for a Bidimensional Partially Observed Ornstein–Uhlenbeck Process with Biological Application

Abstract. We consider a bidimensional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process to describe the tissue microvascularization in anti‐cancer therapy. Data are discrete, partial and noisy observations of this stochastic differential equation (SDE). Our aim is to estimate the SDE parameters. We use the main advantage of a one‐dimensional observation to obtain an easy way to compute the exact likelihood using the Kalman filter recursion, which allows to implement an easy numerical maximization of the likelihood. Furthermore, we establish the link between the observations and an ARMA process and we deduce the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimator. We show that this ARMA property can be generalized to a higher dimensional underlying Ornstein–Uhlenbeck diffusion. We compare this estimator with the one obtained by the well‐known expectation maximization algorithm on simulated data. Our estimation methods can be directly applied to other biological contexts such as drug pharmacokinetics or hormone secretions.     

STICKY PRICE AND STICKY INFORMATION PRICE‐SETTING MODELS: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

Using a partial equilibrium framework, Mankiw and Reis show that a sticky information model can generate a lagged and gradual inflation response after a monetary policy shock, whereas a sticky price model cannot. Our study demonstrates that the finding is sensitive to their model's parameterization. To determine a plausible parameterization, we specify a general equilibrium model with sticky information. In that model, we find that inflation peaks only one period after a monetary disturbance. A sensitivity analysis of our results reveals that the inflation peak is delayed by including real rigidities when the monetary policy instrument is money growth, whereas inflation peaks immediately when the policy instrument is the nominal interest rate. ( JEL E31, E32, E52)     

Minorities and the media: a content analysis of native Canadians in the daily press*

Cette étude examine la question de l'espace consacré aux autochtones canadiens dans la presse ontarienne. Une analyse de contenu est utilisée pour examiner la fréquence des reportages sur les Amérindiens et les Inuits, les classes d'événements, la prédominance des articles, ainsi que les termes utilisés dans les manchettes. Les raportages les plus fréquents concernant les deux groupes touchaient les relations gouvernementales et les revendications territoriales, tandis que pour les Amérindiens en particulier, les reportages des conflits prédominaient. L'analyse des manchettes semble indiquer qu'un rapport existe entre l'identification des Amérindiens et les termes décrivant les conflit ou la contestation. En conclusion, il est suggéré que l'image des peuples autochtones présentée dans la presse ontarienne est liée aux relations gouvernementales et aux revendications territoriales. De futures recherches devraient pouvoir déterminer l'influence de cette image sur les attitudes de lecteurs d'appartenance majoritaire ou minoritaire.
This study is concerned with Ontario newspaper coverage of native Canadians. Content analysis is employed to examine frequency of stories about Indians and Eskimos, event categories, article prominence, and headline wording. Most frequent news categories for both were government relationships and land claims, but for Indians conflict material was most prominently located. Headline analysis indicates some association between Indian identification and conflict/deviance words. The conclusion suggests native Canadian images presented are tied to government relationships and land claim activity. Future research should assess image influence in attitudes of majority and minority readers.