This paper analyzes mean reversion in the stock markets of 18 OECD countries during the years 1900–2009. In this period it takes stock prices about 18.5 years, on average, to absorb half of a shock. However, using a rolling-window approach we establish large fluctuations in the speed of mean...

The Panzar-Rosse test has been widely applied to assess competitive conduct, often in specifications controlling for firm scale or using a price equation. We show that neither a price equation nor a scaled revenue function yields a valid measure for competitive conduct. Moreover, even an...

Often, a relatively small group of trades causes the major part of the trading costs on an investment portfolio. Consequently, reducing the trading costs of comparatively few expensive trades would already result in substantial savings on total trading costs. Since trading costs depend to some...

Contents: Part I. Measurement of financial-sector competition -- 1. Market power: competition among measures / Sherrill Shaffer and Laura Spierdijk -- 2. The Panzar-Rosse revenue test and market power in banking: an empirical illustration / Sherrill Shaffer and Laura Spierdijk -- 3. Adapting...