Explaining university course grade gaps

This paper estimates the discrepancy in university mathematics and science course grades across races. Although there are significant Black–White and Hispanic–White grade discrepancies, or gaps, Black and Hispanic students who are equally prepared for university as White students do as well as White students. The grade gaps are explained after accounting for important factors such as a student’s academic capabilities and socioeconomic status. Varying behaviors of university students relative to high school across races are ruled out as a possible source of the grade gaps.     

Conspicuous consumption and “race”: Evidence from South Africa

A century ago, Thorstein Veblen introduced socially contingent consumption into the economic literature. This paper complements the scarce empirical literature by testing his conjecture on South African household data and finds that Black and Coloured households spend relatively more on visible consumption than comparable White households. Following the approach of Charles et al. (2009), this paper explores whether the differences in visible expenditures can be explained with a signaling model of status seeking. Moreover, it is assessed to which extent positional concerns motivate conspicuous consumption. Although the socially contingent share in visible consumption increases with income, different incentives to consume conspicuously seem to explain that, at every level of income, Black households spend relatively more on visible consumption than comparable White households. In contrast to the findings of Charles et al. (2009) where differential spending on conspicuous consumption can be found also within each group separately, the model's core hypothesis fails to hold within the group of White South Africans.     

Credit crunch in a model of financial intermediation and occupational choice

In this paper, we introduce a dynamic general equilibrium model with numerous and heterogeneous investment projects and endogenous occupational choice to study a credit crunch. Asset accumulation of assets by households as they face various employment and return risks over a long lifetime determines whether they are entrepreneurs or workers. The origin of a credit crunch may be found in the conservative lending by banks during periods of financial duress and reduced profitability because of capital requirements. Using an example from Canada, monetary policy is shown to be largely ineffective in alleviating the credit crunch, while flexible loan regulation can erase it.     

Can investment advisors promote rational investment? Evidence from micro-data in China

Investment advisors are important participants in financial markets. With the increasing demand for household financial asset management in China, the role of investment advisors is being widely discussed. Taking investors’ degree of diversification as the proxy of the rational investment, this study examines the role of investment advisors in promoting rational investments. It finds that investors with investment advisors are more likely to invest rationally. Further analysis shows that investment advisors play a greater role in promoting rational investment of investors with more investment experience, better financial literacy, more investible assets and male. The conclusions of this study indicate that giving full play to the role of professional investment advisors in household asset allocations and encouraging investors to invest rationally is important for the prevention of financial risks and the promotion of the healthy development of the financial market.     

HOW HOUSEHOLD PORTFOLIOS EVOLVE AFTER RETIREMENT: THE EFFECT OF AGING AND HEALTH SHOCKS

We study how the portfolios of U.S. households evolve after retirement, using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In particular, we investigate the influence of aging and health shocks on a household's ownership of various assets and on the share of total assets held in each asset class. We find that households decrease their ownership of principal residences, vehicles, financial assets, businesses, and real estate as they age, while increasing the share of assets held in liquid assets and time deposits. We find that widowhood and other health shocks are associated with the same kinds of portfolio changes, and that the effect of shocks strengthens with time since the shock. Finally, we show that the effect of a shock is greatly magnified when households have physical or mental impairments. This suggests that factors other than standard risk and return considerations weigh heavily in many older households' portfolio decisions.     

房屋拆迁与家庭金融风险资产投资

文章基于心理账户和资源保存理论,利用2011年中国家庭金融调查数据,考察了房屋拆迁对家庭金融风险资产投资的影响及其机制.研究结果表明,房屋拆迁显著增强了家庭投资金融风险资产的意愿,提高了家庭在金融风险资产上的投资比重.财富损失预期在房屋拆迁影响家庭金融风险资产投资中起了显著的中介作用,而这一中介效应受到社会保险的正向调节.文章从经济学、管理学和心理学相融合的视角进行分析,为人类经济行为和结果提供了新见解;同时,研究结论对拓宽居民家庭投资渠道、深化金融体制改革和促进经济增长具有重要的参考价值和指导意义.     

Precautionary Saving and Health Insurance: A Portfolio Choice Perspective

This paper analyzes the impact of health insurance on household portfolio choice. Using the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finance and Health Retirement Survey databases, it finds that insured households are more likely to own stocks and invest a larger proportion of financial assets in stocks than uninsured households do. The results remain strong even after controlling for household characteristics and reverse causality. Further, the results are robust across different survey years and data sources. It suggests that a precautionary motive is strong in household portfolio choice decisions.     

企业金融化、高管股权激励与研发投资

以2010-2015年沪深584家A股上市公司为样本,从产权异质性角度考察企业金融化、高管股权激励与研发投资关系。研究发现:①非货币金融资产持有比例与研发投资呈负相关,反映企业金融化对研发投资具有挤出效应,且高管股权激励能弱化企业金融化与研发投资的负向关系。挤出效应和弱化效应在投资性金融资产上体现非常明显,而在交易类金融资产上体现不明显;②与非国有企业相比,非货币金融资产的挤出效应和高管股权激励的弱化效应在国有企业中表现更为显著。投资性金融资产的挤出效应在国有企业中较为显著,而在非国有企业中不太显著,但高管股权激励的抑制作用在国有或非国有企业均较为明显。不论产权异质性,交易类金融资产的挤出效应和高管股权激励的抑制作用均不显著。     

Prior investment outcomes and stock investment in defined contribution plans

In this study, we employ the 2001–2013 Survey of Consumer Finances to examine how prior investment outcomes affect portfolio allocation in defined contribution (DC) plans. Results show that investors with prior gains are more likely to invest all DC plan assets in stocks. Factors such as risk tolerance and investment horizon positively affect investors’ tendency to allocate all DC assets to stocks. These findings have important implications for investors, researchers and financial professionals.     

股权结构、内部现金流和企业投资行为——对自由现金流和信息不对称理论的检验

中国上市公司控制权和现金流权的高度分离为我们提供了一个很好的研究投资现金流敏感性的样本.本文从终极控制人的视角,以我国2003-2007年上市公司为研究对象,研究了终极控制股东现金流权及控制权与现金流权的偏离对企业过度投资的影响.研究表明:企业的投资现金流敏感度随着终极控股股东现金流权的增加而趋于下降;伴随控制权与现金流权分离水平的增加而上升.这种结果和自由现金流假说一致,即控股股东拥有过多的自由现金流可能导致过度投资,并且这种过度投资问题在资产收益率低的公司里更加严重.我们的结果不仅解决了以往关于现金流和投资之间的敏感是由于控股股东偏好过度投资还是投资不足的争论,而且为控股股东存在“激励效应”和“堑壕效应”提供了直接证据     

CREDIT RATIONING,RISK AVERSION,AND INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Relative to their counterparts in high‐income regions, entrepreneurs in developing countries face less efficient financial markets, more volatile macroeconomic conditions, and higher entry costs. This article develops a dynamic empirical model that links these features of the business environment to cross‐firm productivity distributions, entrepreneurs’ welfare, and patterns of industrial evolution. Fit to panel data on Colombian apparel producers, the model yields estimates of a credit market imperfection index, the sunk costs of creating a new business, and various technology parameters. Model‐based counterfactual experiments suggest that improved intermediation could dramatically increase the return on assets for entrepreneurial households with modest wealth.     

Inflation and asset returns

Sustained inflation is detrimental to long-run growth and the financial system. A recent theoretical literature suggests that high inflation implies low real returns on assets. These low returns exacerbate informational frictions, interfering with the functioning of financial markets and the allocation of investment. We investigate the plausibility of an inverse relationship between inflation and real returns. Inflation and nominal equity returns are negatively correlated or uncorrelated for all low-to-moderate inflation economies examined. Safe nominal rates of return and inflation are only weakly positively correlated. However, for high inflation economies inflation and nominal returns are strongly positively correlated.     

我国居民家庭子女教育投资动机的经济学分析

我国城市居民家庭在子女教育投资方面,一般会受到流动性约束的影响,并且父母的当期收入会影响到对子女当期教育的投资;父母对于子女教育投资的动机主要符合贷款合同模型,即父母对于子女的教育投资是暗含后期回报的合同,这一合同主要通过家庭的某种内在机制和社会道德标准来执行的.基于这样的结论,笔者认为,为扩大父母对子女教育方面的合理投资,国家应该建立健全教育方面的金融渠道,提供符合我国国情的教育贷款或保险,使父母对子女的教育的投资更加平滑.     

收购方为什么要在兼并交易中雇用投资银行

本文考察了当兼并交易具有哪些特征时,收购方公司更可能会在兼并交易中雇用投资银行作为其兼并交易的财务顾问。研究结果表明,在下列情况下,收购方公司更有可能雇用投资银行作为其兼并交易的财务顾问：兼并交易较复杂,收购方公司的兼并交易经验不足,收购方公司仅收购目标公司部分资产或股权,兼并交易价格较高,兼并交易为敌意收购,收购方公司在金融行业运营,目标公司在很多行业经营。     

Losers amongst the Losers:: The welfare effects of the great recession across cohorts

This paper studies the effect of deep recessions on intergenerational inequality by quantifying the welfare effects on households at different phases of the life cycle. Deep recessionary episodes are characterized by large declines in the prices of real and financial assets and in employment. The former levies high welfare costs on older households who own financial wealth, the latter determines labour income losses and destroys the human capital of younger cohorts, lowering their productivity. The paper extends previous analyses in the literature by including permanent labour income losses in an OLG model calibrated to match the Great Recession. The analysis shows that younger households lose more than double of all other living cohorts, as younger household become unemployed and experience a decline in their future income. The dynamics of households’ consumption and portfolio composition between 2007 and 2013 in the US are consistent with the predictions of the model.     

居民储蓄与投资选择:金融资产发展的含义

本文对我国银行储蓄高企的原因进行探讨,认为单纯从消费角度解释与消化居民银行储蓄是不适当的,化解高储蓄的另一有效方式在于发展准储蓄替代产品、拓展金融投资渠道.金融资产的不确定性增强了储蓄的价值,银行储蓄高企与居民直接投资所受的约束密切相关.我国现阶段低风险资产的缺乏,以及风险资产的广度和深度难以配比居民的投资选择,产生强制性银行储蓄,是现在储蓄高企的重要原因.因此,有必要反思传统的投融资方式,大力培育储蓄替代型金融资产,加快金融体制改革.     

USES OF FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS IN MONETARY ANALYSIS

Developments in economic theory have in many ways enhanced the opportunity for using financial accounts data in monetary analysis. This is true in such areas as the role of assets, the development of portfolio choice theory, the demand for money, and the behavior of intermediaries. At the same time, theory has increasingly emphasized behavioral relationships. These developments give rise to new data needs. An inquiry was addressed to some 25 specialists, whose responses illustrate these needs. Some of the desired data are “more of the same,” such as more sectoring, more detail on financial instruments, data on stocks as well as flows. Some data needs, reflecting behavioral theorizing, point beyond traditional financial accounts data and call for maturity distributions, interest rates, rates of return on equities and real assets, and the parameters of their frequency distributions. The degree of economic development and the degree of openness are found to be important determinants of the kind of data to be sought and employed in particular countries. Public policy is finding increasing use for financial accounts data in coordinating the flow of financial resources with the planning of physical investment. Nevertheless, many policy purposes call for more detailed data than can be provided by an integrated system. This has led to a selective use of data sources outside the financial accounts. Builders of financial models, likewise, have found it preferable to work with more flexible data selected ad hoc than with integrated financial accounts. Hope of applying the techniques of modern model building to financial accounts data, such as econometric estimation of a flow of funds table, or its conversion into an input-output matrix, seems tenuous for the time being. Thus, financial accountants, competing with financial model builders for the attention of theorists and policy makers, must broaden the scope of their data in the hope that there is room for the growth of both disciplines.     

INFLATION,INFLATION ACCOUNTING AND ITS EFFECT,CANADIAN MANUFACTURING, 1966–82*

This paper provides estimates of the effects of inflation in Canada on the reported rate of return in manufacturing from 1966 to 1982. It provides estimates for several different concepts of rate of return (both for all assets, whether financed by equity or debt, and for the narrower equity to the owners) and for both a narrow and wide range of financial assets. Comparisons are made with similar studies for the United Kingdom. Such studies show that reported profits are overstated and total assets are undervalued during and after periods of inflation with traditional accounting concepts relative to an economic concept designed to maintain the firm as an ongoing entity. The paper also discusses a number of factors that have contributed to the marked drop in the rate of return in Canadian manufacturing when both income and assets are valued at replacement costs. Some of these factors are also present in the other industrialized countries, such as increased raw materials prices, and a slower increase in productivity. Other factors have been relatively more important in Canada than in other countries, such as the historically higher level of production costs in Canada than in the United States and Japan, the two most important countries in Canadian trade. This is important during a period of tariff reductions when international competition in manufactured products is widespread. Although corporate profits and the adjusted profits rates of return were depressed by the severity of the 1981-82 recession, some of the key factors depressing the rates of return are longer-term in nature. A continued persistence of these factors during the balance of the 1980s could contribute to restraint in business investment in manufacturing when total returns on a replacement cost basis are so much below the corporate long-term cost of capital. This paper applies the concepts of inflation accounting to total Canadian manufacturing for the period from 1966 to 1982. Measures of rates of return for individual years are provided, both on the basis of total assets and on the basis of the net assets attributable to the owners. There are four sections in the paper after an introduction. Section 2 is a brief conceptual statement and outlines the methods. Section 3 makes comparisons with similar studies for the United Kingdom and summarizes the results of this and other studies. Section 4 discusses the environmental factors for Canadian manufacturing that appear to contribute to the lower rates of return in recent years. Section 5 discusses the implications of the results for future business decisions.     

A possibilistic portfolio adjusting model with new added assets

In order to fit changes in financial markets, portfolio managers often need to revise an existing portfolio. This article analyzes the portfolio adjusting problem with new added assets. We propose a possibilistic portfolio adjusting model with transaction costs and bounded constraints on holdings of assets, which can be transformed into a linear programming problem. Both the lower bounds on holdings and the total investment constraints influence the optimal portfolio adjusting strategies. Furthermore, a numerical example of a portfolio adjusting problem is given to illustrate our proposed effective approaches. The numerical results show the case that investors do not need to invest total capital and to hold all assets in the portfolio for some required return levels.     

“互联网+”战略、金融资产配置与企业创新投资——来自数字化企业的准自然实验

数字经济背景下，互联网对企业创新的作用日益凸显。数字化企业作为国家“互联网+”战略实施的“排头兵”，过度持有金融资产会对创新投资产生挤出效应，从而不利于国家创新能力提升和经济发展。互联网时代，能否通过“互联网+”战略促使数字化企业降低金融资产配置水平，从而促进创新投资成为亟待解决的问题。以2010—2020年沪深A股上市公司为样本，实证检验“互联网+”战略实施、数字化企业金融资产配置与创新投资三者间的互动关系。结果发现，“互联网+”战略能够通过降低数字化企业金融资产配置水平促进创新投资，即金融资产配置在“互联网+”战略与数字化企业创新投资间发挥部分中介效应。进一步将创新投资细分为探索式和利用式创新投资发现，“互联网+”战略能够促进数字化企业探索式创新投资，抑制利用式创新投资，同时金融资产配置在“互联网+”战略与探索式创新投资间难以发挥中介效应，但在“互联网+”战略与利用式创新投资间发挥遮掩效应；对企业金融资产配置的蓄水池动机和替代动机进行检验发现，“互联网+”战略能够削弱数字化企业的蓄水池动机，对替代动机无显著影响。结论能够为国家更好地发展互联网经济，合理配置数字化企业金融资产，优化创新投资提供经验借鉴和实证支持。