When Does Government Debt Crowd Out Investment?

We examine when government debt crowds out investment for the US economy using an estimated New Keynesian model with detailed fiscal specifications and accounting for monetary and fiscal policy interactions. Whether investment is crowded in or out in the short term depends on policy shocks triggering debt expansions: higher debt can crowd in investment for cutting capital tax rates or increasing government investment. Contrary to the conventional view, no systematic relationships between real interest rates and investment exist, explaining why reduced‐form regressions are inconclusive about crowding out. At longer horizons, distortionary financing is important for the negative investment response to debt. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investment: A Worldwide Boom

Investment is booming: not only in the UK but also in the US, Japan and in Europe. In this Briefing Paper we seek to understand why this is happening – a global phenomenon clearly requires a global not a local explanation – and to consider whether the boom will continue. To this end (and not in order to discriminate between alternative theories of investment), we examine the main theories of investment and show that recent developments are consistent with models based on the accelerator, or which emphasize the cost of finance or which depend upon stock market valuation effects. And, no matter which theory holds, the implication is the same: investment will weaken in 1989 and this is an important element in our forecast of slower world and UK growth next year.
But there is an alternative view, which implies a more optimistic outlook. The theories which we consider are essentially cyclical: they focus on the key role of (volatile) investment spending in the business cycle. It may well be that the present surge in investment is a long-tern, structural phenomenon reflecting either a shift in the pattern of world demand or the spread of computer-based technology, which has raised the efficiency of investment. In this case, and notwithstanding this year's surge in investment, tighter monetary policy and the stock market crash, the present boom in investment may have a lot further to run.     

高新技术企业研发投入与内部资金相关性的实证分析

本文从理论与实地调研及国外实证研究等方面分析表明：高新技术企业研发投入与内部资金具有较强的相关性，但通过对我国2003年-2005年上市公司采用回归分析法检验却发现，二者之间相关性不显著，由此认为仅有研发强度等考核指标不能全面反映企业实际研发投入的相对水平，不利于推动、考核企业实际的研发投入，应增设企业研发投入与内部资金之间系列考核指标。     

媒体监督、非效率投资与企业价值——来自中国制造业上市公司的证据

以我国2010—2012年制造业违规上市公司为样本，对媒体监督、非效率投资和企业价值之间的动态关系进行研究，结果显示：近几年制造业违规上市公司普遍存在投资不足；媒体监督与非效率投资显著负相关，媒体监督可以明显降低企业非效率投资水平；无论是对于国有上市公司还是对于非国有上市公司来说，媒体监督都能抑制非效率投资，且对非国有企业约束力更强；媒体监督可以抑制和缓解非效率投资对企业价值的损害，保护股东的利益。     

Deciphering the UK's business investment performance

• ? Absent June 2016's Brexit vote, growth in business investment would have been much faster and the UK would be sharing in a global “investment boom”. Or so the Bank of England claims. But the reality is more complicated. What is striking is just how subdued investment growth has been across countries.
• ? Survey evidence presented by the Bank suggests that recent business investment growth has been less than a third of what might have been achieved absent Brexit. The UK has also been highlighted as an investment laggard among major economies.
• ? Headline investment growth has certainly been relatively weak since 2016. Uncertainty around future UK‐EU trading arrangements may have resulted in some investment being deferred or cancelled. And the Brexit‐related fall in sterling will have pushed up the cost of imported capital equipment, cutting demand.
• ? But a collapse in investment in the North Sea sector has had a significant effect on headline investment growth. On an excluding‐extraction basis, UK business investment rose at the same pace as the US (ex‐extraction) and faster than Japan in 2016 and 2017, while average annual growth rises from 1.0% to 2.4%.
• ? What is striking about the recent performance of business investment in the UK and other G7 members is how subdued growth has been across economies. Despite a favourable environment, no major advanced economy has seen investment rise at the type of rates that the Bank predicts the UK, but for Brexit, should be now enjoying.
• ? Sectoral shifts, the rise of intangible investment and the consequences of technooptimism offer some reasons as to why measured investment may have become less sensitive to economic upswings. These same factors suggest that 1990s‐style growth in private investment is unlikely in the UK (or elsewhere) even once Brexit uncertainty has cleared. Indeed, our own medium‐term forecasts see business investment growth across major economies continuing to run at a relatively subdued pace.

     

WORKERS' COMPENSATION COSTS AND REGIONAL GROWTH DYNAMICS*

This paper attempts to gauge the effect of workplace regulation, against the background of other influences, on the increasing or decreasing competitive advantage of particular regions relative to the nation. We employ two measures of regional growth. The first is the differential rate of investment growth across states between 1978 and 1984. The results for output growth show that states both in the South and outside the South stand to lose their competitive edge in manufacturing activity from rising unit labor cost and energy cost. Rising taxes hurt industrial activity in the North but are not critical in the South. Agglomeration economies that benefit the North, apparently have no detrimental effect in the South. Rising workers' compensation cost is significant in the decline in southern competitiveness; it is not in the North. Both regions enhance their competitive position when local markets grow. For regional manufacturing investment, we find that unit labor cost and energy cost have no significant effect on the competitive position of states in the South. However, taxes and workers' compensation costs hurt investment opportunities in South.     

Timing of investment under technological and revenue-related uncertainties

The effects of two forms of uncertainty on the timing of irreversible investment are considered. Technological uncertainty is modeled as a Poisson arrival process that reduces the cost of investment, while revenue uncertainty is modeled as a diffusion process. Technological uncertainty has no effect on the optimal investment policy when revenue uncertainty is absent. However, when combined with revenue uncertainty, increased technological uncertainty makes investment less attractive relative to waiting. The paper also makes a more general point in clarifying the difference in how diffusion type of uncertainty and unidirectional stochastic progress affect investment timing.     

国有上市公司的治理机制与过度投资

以特定行业388家国有上市公司2001-2005年数据为样本,在界定过度投资水平和分析投资决策机制基础上,选取治理机制中的股权结构、董事会和产品市场竞争三方面,分析并实证检验其对过度投资的影响。结果显示,国有股比例的增加使国有公司过度投资水平更高;股权制衡对投资过度有制约作用;地方控股较中央控股国有公司,过度投资水平更高。产品市场竞争对过度投资有制约作用,但不显著。董事会特征与过度投资之间无显著关系。     

An optimal-incentive contract for managers with exponential utility

This paper examines the manager–investor relationship in the case of exponential utility when the manager of investments in real or financial assets has an endowment which can be invested in the risky assets for which he has private information. We obtain a relationship showing trade-offs or hedging behavior among the investments the manager can choose for himself and the principal. Even with the hedging ability of the manager, the well-known first-best solution with ‘no moral hazard’ risk-sharing is obtained among these possible solutions to the manager's problem by specifying a ‘no conflict of interest’, zero investment by the manager of his own endowment in those risky assets for which he has private information. Thus, the agent imputes no disutility to the assignment of the principal's investments and the investor is assured of an investment strategy that he would make if he had access to the manager's private information.     

大陆之“新”

成批台湾中小企业因大陆制造成本高企而返乡、外迁越南但对于千亿级营收的台湾商业巨头来说,中国大陆的商业征途刚刚展开     

基于公司不进行正式研发投资的简要探讨

本文我们研究了正式的研发投资的频率。用实物期权和基于知识的观点去解释一个公司的知识资源是怎么影响该公司用于确定技术选择的研发投资频率。详细的说,我们得出一个公司若没有内部知识资源,很可能就总不投资研发;若有内外部知识资源,公司有时投资研发;但有内部知识资源而没有外部知识资源时,公司很可能总是投资研发。     

Capital allocation to alternatives with a multivariate ladder gamma return distribution

This paper considers investment decision making when returns have a multivariate gamma distribution which has the particular correlation structure of Furman’s ladder gamma distribution. With an exponential utility function It is shown that there is a subset of the candidate investment opportunities to which investment should be allocated. This subset can be readily identified in a two step process that results in a list of candidate investments that is ranked in sequence of decreasing risk. The last investment opportunity on this list will be no risk cash. Investments are then selected from this list in sequence up to a cutoff point that depends on the investors capital and degree of risk aversion. If capital and degree of risk aversion are sufficiently large so that it is optimal to allocate some to no risk cash, then the capital allocated to each risky investment is a constant fraction of the total capital allocated to risky investments irrespective of how risk averse is the investor.     

Real estate collateral value and investment: The case of China

Previous research on the United States and Japan finds economically large impacts of changing real estate collateral value on firm investment that amplified the business cycles of those countries. Working with unique data on land values in 35 major Chinese markets and a panel of firms outside the real estate industry, we estimate investment equations that yield no evidence of a collateral channel effect. Further analysis indicates that China’s debt is not characterized by the frictions that give rise to collateral channel effects elsewhere. Essentially, financially constrained borrowers appear able credibly to commit to repay debt in China. While there is no impact on investment via the collateral channel, our results should not be interpreted as implying there will be no negative fallout from a potential real estate bust on the Chinese economy. There likely would be, but through different channels.     

我国存货投资与宏观经济波动相关性的分析

在对国内外存货投资与经济波动相关文献简要介绍的基础上,具体分析了中国的存货/销售额比率及存货投资与中国经济周期之间的相关性。研究表明:存货/销售额比率的逆周期性特征比较明显,并体现出一定的持久性;就长期而言,存货投资的顺周期性特征比较明显,就短期来讲,存货投资与经济波动的规律性并不存在。作为政策参考,建议采取存货/销售额比率作为宏观经济形势判断的参考指标,并密切跟踪存货投资的顺周期性特征的未来表现。     

Growth, public investment and corruption with failing institutions

Corruption is thought to prevent poor countries from catching up with richer ones. We analyze one channel through which corruption hampers growth: public investment can be distorted in favor of specific types of spending for which rent-seeking is easier and better concealed. To study this distortion, we propose a dynamic model where households vote for the composition of public spending, subject to an incentive constraint reflecting individuals’ choice between productive activity and rent-seeking. In equilibrium, the structure of public investment is determined by the predatory technology and the distribution of political power. Among different regimes, the model shows a possible scenario of distortion without corruption in which there is no effective corruption but the possibility of corruption still distorts the allocation of public investment. We test the implications of the model on a set of countries using a two-stage least squares estimation. We find that developing countries with high predatory technology invest more in housing and physical capital in comparison with health and education. The reverse is true for developed countries.      

Investment in Fixed Capital Stock: Testing for the Impact of Sectoral and Systemic Uncertainty*

This paper applies current theory recognizing the irreversibility of investment, in order to test for the impact of uncertainty on investment expenditure for a middle income country. The contribution of the paper is unique in two respects. First, it employs dynamic heterogeneous panel estimation techniques not previously applied to investment functions. Secondly, it explicitly tests for the impact of both sectoral and systemic uncertainty on investment expenditure. We find that both sectoral (as measured by output volatility) and systemic uncertainty (as measured by political instability) have a negative impact on investment rates in a middle income country context. Liquidity constraints and growth in total factor productivity are found to have no impact on investment, while trade liberalization has the impact predicted by Heckscher‐Ohlin trade theory. Finally, we find complementarity effects between physical capital and skilled human capital, suggesting that South African educational policies may have hampered investment in physical capital as well as the growth performance of the economy. Policy implications emphasize the importance of lowering uncertainty for investors, and the need for sound human capital investment.     

开展医疗绿卡服务与改善投资软环境之间关系的研究

医疗绿卡服务工作自开展以来,为广大医疗绿卡持卡者提供了优质的医疗保健服务。为更好地服务于昆山的经济建设,为在昆山工作的外企高层管理者及各类高级人才提供快速、便捷、优质的全程医疗服务,让他们无后顾之忧,安心工作,及时成立了"医疗绿卡服务中心",完善了"医疗绿卡"服务制度,切实提升医疗绿卡的服务水平,牢固树立"人人都是投资环境"的观念,增强大局意识,增强服务意识,从而优化昆山的投资软环境。     

民营企业研发投资影响公司绩效的实证研究——基于深市中小板上市公司的面板数据分析

本文以101家在董事会报告中连续五年披露研发支出的中小板民营上市公司为研究样本,分析研发投资与企业绩效的关系。研究发现,民营企业当期研发投资与企业绩效不具有显著的相关关系,研发投资对企业绩效的影响存在滞后,具体体现在滞后一期和滞后二期的研发强度与企业绩效显著正相关。     

Incorporating disounted cash flow contours onto a bcg portfolio matrix using limit pricing

Little or no attempt has been made to integrate the tools of financial investment appraisal with that of corporate strategy, despite the centrality of both of these disciplines in corporate resource allocation. This paper offers one approach which sets out, through a computer model, to explore the location of DCF values on a strategic portfolio matrix. The modelling took the BCG matrix as the basis of its text together with BCG's own assumption. It was found that the resulting DCF contours suggests a different emphasis compared with BCG's investment advice based on the matrix. The authors do not pretend, however, that the model provided is an immediate, more rigorous, solution to practical strategic analysis. Nor do they argue that the BCG advice may not be appropriate under a wider set of assumptions. The model is offered as suggesting one direction in which work might be conducted in order to link financial investment appraisal with strategic analysis portfolios in order gradually to convert the very general advice usually offered by the use of such matrices to a more precise form.     

The financial investment decision of non-financial firms in China

This paper constructs a portfolio model to analyze the determinants of the financial investment decision of non-financial firms in China. Unlike the literature assuming that financial investments are riskless, our model allows risks in both fixed and financial investments. We show that this extension provides an analytically similar but economically different model from the literature. In particular, it is relative risk and risk-adjusted return gap, not pure risk and simple return gap that enter into firms’ financial investment decision model. Using firm-level panel data of 1902 firms listed in Chinese stock market over the period from 2006 to 2016 with semi-annual frequency, we find that the ratio of fixed investment risk over total risk dominates financial investment decisions of non-financial firms. However, rates of risk-adjusted return gap between financial and fixed investments play no role in Chinese firms’ financial investment decisions, which is in stark contrast to the results using a model assuming riskless financial investments. The baseline findings are robust to alternative measures of financialization and investment risk and different firm sizes, ownership structures and time periods.