Smart fund managers? Stupid money?

Abstract .  We develop a model of mutual fund manager investment decisions near the end of quarters. We show that when investors reward better performing funds with higher cash flows, near quarter-ends a mutual fund manager has an incentive to distort new investment toward stocks in which his fund holds a large existing position. The short-term price impact of these trades increase the fund's reported returns. Higher returns are rewarded by greater subsequent fund inflows which, in turn, allow for more investment distortion the next quarter. Because the price impact of trades is short term, each subsequent quarter begins with a larger return deficit. Eventually, the deficit cannot be overcome. Thus, our model leads to the empirically observed short-run persistence and long-run reversal in fund performance. In doing so, our model provides a consistent explanation of many other seemingly contradictory empirical features of mutual fund performance.     

分析师预测信息来源的新发现:会计师事务所

文章通过检验券商与公司聘任同一家会计师事务所对券商旗下分析师预测行为的影响,研究了证券分析师的预测信息是否可能来源于会计师事务所.研究发现:(1)分析师更愿意跟踪与所属券商聘任同一家会计师事务所的上市公司,对其发布的盈余预测更准确,也更倾向于额外发布现金流预测.(2)券商与公司从非同聘会计师事务所变更为同聘会计师事务所,其分析师预测的准确性提高,反之则降低.分析师对与所属券商聘任同一家会计师事务所的公司在年报披露前最后一次盈余预测的准确性有更大幅度的提高.(3)同聘会计师事务所对预测准确性的促进作用集中在分析师跟踪少和收入变化大的公司以及非明星分析师发布的预测.文章的研究有助于理解同聘会计师事务所对分析师预测行为的影响,也有助于资本市场上的投资者更好地利用同聘会计师事务所的券商旗下分析师发布的预测报告,拓展了分析师预测信息来源的研究.     

A panel data analysis of the effect of corruption on tourism

This study empirically tests the hypothesis that corruption has a negative effect on tourism. Having to pay bribes while on holiday or a business trip increases the costs of travelling to a country where corruption is prevalent. Tourists are thus more likely to travel to countries where these additional costs do not need to be incurred. This hypothesis is tested using a panel data set of over 100 countries and 16 years. The results indicate that a 1-point increase in the Corruption Perception Index (implying a decrease in corruption) results in a 2% to 7% increase in tourist inflows. In addition, tourist inflows rise with GDP per capita, openness and growth and are higher in countries with a temperate climate.     

Fund Portfolio Holdings and Affiliated Analyst's Objectivity: Do Equity and Employment Relationship Matter?

The author investigates how the equity relationship between fund company and brokerage firm as well as employment relationship between analyst and brokerage firm affect affiliated fund stock portfolio holding and the affiliated analyst's objectivity. By using the specific data of such equity and employment relationship, the author finds that equity and employment relationship do matter in fund portfolio holdings and analyst objectivity. Specifically, analysts tend to release more optimal ratings on stocks that have been hold by the funds, and the funds tend to significantly reduce the stocks in their portfolio once the analysts have announced high ratings on the stocks. Moreover, the analysts in employment relationships with majority shareholders of funds and with a low reputation reveal worse objectivity. In addition, from the point of abnormal return, analysts in employment relationships with majority shareholders of funds and with a low reputation damage the interests of common investors.     

Investing in mutual funds: the determinants of implied and actual net cash flows

Estimating the fund investors’ demand plays an important role in the mutual fund management. In this line, mutual fund demand can be measured as the total net cash flows experienced by the fund during a period. Due to a lack of the data for inflows and outflows in some countries and databases, many authors estimate the net cash flows using fund size and return information. This rough measure, although being a good approximation, implicitly assumes an error in its calculation. For a sample of 2985 US open-end funds, we find evidence that estimating this implied fund flows, the error generated is higher for smaller funds, funds with higher returns, and for those experiencing higher levels of inflows or outflows. This lack of precision leads to a distortion in the estimation of the effect of some determinants on the mutual fund demand, especially when longer periods are considered when constructing the net cash flows.     

Determinants of Inflow to Mutual Funds: Criterion and Methodology for Their Application to the Mainland China Market

This study is based on the Froot, O’Connell, and Seasholes [2001] and Hsieh, Yang and Yu [2008] as foundations to study which reasons and control factors cause herding behavior of mutual fund inflows. The study uses the most popular Asian emerging market, China, as the sample to determine the real attractive reason behind the mutual fund inflows to China. The significant determinant of the mutual fund inflows to China is stock returns for both Shanghai and Shenzhen A stock markets.     

中国证券商的业务竞争与创新发展势态

本文分析了开放条件下我国证券业经营竞争环境的变化，并从6个方面分析了中国证券商业务创新的发展势态。（1）证券业分类管理制度使证券商的经营规模发生变化；（2）证券发行与承销方式的改革深化了证券业内的服务竞争；（3）证券网络化交易的快速发展完善了交易清算的服务管理模式；（4）交易佣金制度的改革将使证券业的结构调整得到不断优化；（5）投资基金业务与投资组合的多样化对基金经理行为的监管提出了新的要求；（6）中国放宽市场准入条件的同时必须完善制度创新与管理创新。     

On causality in the size-efficiency relationship: the effect of investor cash flows on the mutual fund industry

One of the perceived advantages in mutual fund management is the presence of economies of scale resulting from fund size. This article analyses the impact of mutual fund cash flows on the relation between size and performance, demonstrating that performance determines asymmetric variations in fund assets, particularly in mutual equity funds. Therefore, the more efficient funds generate broad enough cash flow entry that increases the relative size of the fund, leading to an implicit and positive relation between size and performance. So, if the average size over the period sample is used as a measure of size, such a relation would be biased. When the initial size is used, this bias is avoided and, in general, an insignificant relation is found between size and performance. These results are controlled by mutual fund costs using gross returns to estimate performance. The evidence is robust, and shows only weak evidence of a negative relation between size and performance for the balanced funds that is driven by a low positive relation between costs and size; precisely, the contrary that is expected from the hypothesis of the presence of economies of scale.     

Do political connections decrease the accuracy of stock analysts' recommendations in the Chinese stock market?

This paper studies the association between the accuracy of analysts' recommendations and political connections in the Chinese stock market. As most brokerage firms in China are state-owned, it raises concerns about conflicts of interest among their employed analysts issuing recommendations for Chinese state-owned enterprises. Based on 8469 analysts' recommendations with different ratings for both state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises from 74 brokerage firms, we document that analysts' recommendations are less accurate for Chinese state-owned enterprises, which supports the hypothesis that conflicts of interest create recommendation biases. Political connections encourage analysts to be more optimistic on SOEs and even to generate misleading “Buy” and “Hold” recommendations. Our results demonstrate the existence of an optimism bias among politically connected analysts on state-owned enterprises in China.     

基于专利技术关联度的中间人角色划分方法研究

基于专利数据构建的发明人合作网络有助于分析发明人中间人角色，揭示发明人创新合作规律，对于企业研发人才管理和知识管理具有重要指导意义。群体划分是中间人角色划分的一个关键步骤，以往文献大多基于网络结构或者给定网络边界进行群体划分，忽视了专利发明人的知识交流环境和特征。鉴于此，基于专利技术关联度，利用专利著录项中的IPC分类号信息判断企业发明人所属技术知识领域，再以技术知识领域为边界设计一套算法，将发明人归入互斥子群，最终对中间人角色进行高效划分，寒武纪公司数据验证了中间人角色划分算法具有较高的准确性和有效性。     

Capital Inflows,Exchange Rate Flexibility and Credit Booms

Historically, capital flow bonanzas have often fueled sharp credit expansions in advanced and emerging market economies alike. Focusing primarily on emerging markets, this paper analyzes the impact of exchange rate flexibility on credit markets during periods of large capital inflows. It is shown that bank credit is larger and its composition tilts to foreign currency in economies with less flexible exchange rate regimes, and that these results are not explained entirely by the fact that the latter attract more capital inflows than economies with more flexible regimes. The findings thus suggest countries with less flexible exchange rate regimes may stand to benefit the most from regulatory policies that reduce banks' incentives to tap external markets and to lend/borrow in foreign currency; these policies include marginal reserve requirements on foreign lending, currency‐dependent liquidity requirements and higher capital requirement and/or dynamic provisioning on foreign exchange loans.     

The impact of experience on risk taking, overconfidence, and herding of fund managers: Complementary survey evidence

Empirical research has shown that inexperienced fund managers yield significantly higher returns than their more experienced colleagues. If the portfolios of inexperienced are not more risky, this result would contradict the hypothesis of market efficiency. Therefore, it is an important question whether inexperienced fund managers tend to taker higher risks. Higher risk taking may be explained by a higher degree of overconfidence, less herding behavior, or a lower degree of risk aversion. Since the results concerning the relationship between experience and risk taking in previous studies are rather contradictory we provide complementary survey evidence of 117 German fund managers which can improve our understanding in this field. In line with the results of previous studies, we find that herding is decreasing with experience while the evidence concerning risk taking and overconfidence is mixed. Nevertheless, our results provide some support for the hypothesis that inexperienced managers do indeed take higher risks.     

RESOURCE BOOMS, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: THE CASE OF GAS IN BOLIVIA

This paper addresses the question of whether the Bolivian gas boom of the 1990s has bypassed large parts of the poor population, thereby leading to increasing inequalities in an already unequal society. Using a Computable General Equilibrium model that is sequentially linked to a microsimulation model, we examine the transmission channels through which the large resource inflows related to the gas boom, both initial foreign investment in the sector and the subsequent export earnings, as well as large public transfer programs affect the distribution of income. Our focus is on labor market impacts, in particular on shifts between formal and informal employment and changes in relative factor prices. Our simulation results suggest that the gas boom induces a combination of unequalizing and equalizing forces, which tend to offset each other. As net distributional change is limited, growth generated by the boom reduces poverty despite increasing informality.     

Effects of capital flow on the equity and housing markets in Hong Kong

The revival of strong capital flows to emerging economies following the global financial crisis in 2008–2009 has rekindled the debate on effects of excessive capital inflows. We study the effects of official and illicit capital flows on Hong Kong, which is a small and open economy with minimal restrictions on cross‐border fund movements. It is found that the official and illicit capital flow measures display a low level of comovement and exhibit differential effects on Hong Kong's equity and residential housing markets. The results highlight the complexity of managing capital flows, and the relevance of sector‐specific capital management policies.     

Foreign Direct Investment Inflows and Economic Growth: The Case of Korea

The current study examines the relationship between FDI inflows and economic growth of Korea and tests the Bhagwati hypothesis which says that FDI inflow is more beneficial to economic growth in an open trade regime in a multivariate framework. Unlike previous works on the concerned hypothesis, a small‐sample cointegration test is applied to the time‐series data. There is no evidence of cointegration among the variables. The Granger causality test results show that, although FDI inflows do not cause per capita real GDP, the latter is revealed to cause the former when the economic crisis dummy variable is included. There is a unidirectional short‐run causality from domestic investment to per capita real GDP growth rate. The case of Korea does not support the Bhagwati hypothesis.     

The Changing Relationship between Banking Crises and Capital Inflows

Different types of capital inflows have varied effects when predicting banking crises in emerging and developing economies, and these relationships have meaningfully changed over time. In a sample of 29 developing and emerging economies over the period 1976–1991 increases in short‐term debt inflows raised the probability of a banking crisis while increases in inflows for long‐term borrowing by the private sector had the opposite effect. Conversely, over the period 1992–2007 increases in inflows for long‐term borrowing by the private sector and for equity investment both increased the probability of a banking crisis. The findings suggest distinct optimal capital account liberalization policies between the two periods.     

投机资本流入、利率政策的两难问题和货币政策工具的最优搭配

本文构建理论模型分析了如何选择利率和存款准备金率工具的最优搭配,从而在防止通货膨胀和防止热钱流入之间取得最佳平衡。模型显示存款准备金率只对银行贷款起直接抑制作用,当人们通过非银行渠道融资时,可规避准备金率的限制,使其效果下降。而利率政策通过套利机制也对非银行融资起直接限制作用。而且利率政策可以避免对信贷资金分配的不对称限制,使资金分配更平衡有效,所以利率政策相对占优。但当利率吸引投机资本时,可搭配使用准备金率政策以减少利率需要提高的程度,以减少热钱流入。     

When do sell-side analysts switch industries they follow?

Between 1984 and 2014 over 3400 sell-side analysts changed the primary industry they followed. This article documents that analysts are more likely to change their industries when their absolute and relative forecasting accuracy in that industry is low and when the accuracy in the new industry is high. Analysts are more likely to switch industries at the beginning of their careers, after a recent change of an employing brokerage house, and if they have a history of switching industries before. Analysts are less likely to make a switch when their forecasting activity in the industry is high, when the industry is followed by many analysts and when they are employed by a top brokerage house.     

The spatial correlation and interaction between environmental regulation and foreign direct investment

This paper uses spatial simultaneous equation models to analyze the two-way mechanism between environmental regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI). The results, based on data from 285 cities in China from 2003 to 2014, show the following. (1) Not only does environmental regulation have a significant impact on the location choice of FDI, but FDI tends to flow to a city with more relaxed environmental regulation. Environmental regulation can also trigger the near transfer effect of FDI. (2) FDI has a significant spatial spillover effect and this spatial spillover effect has an important impact on FDI and environmental regulation in a particular city. (3) Although multinationals choose a city with more relaxed environmental regulations when they invest in China, FDI inflows have increased both the number and severity of local environmental regulations, indicating that the “pollution haven” hypothesis does not hold in China. (4) Environmental regulation has a significant spatial spillover effect, and this spatial spillover effect has an important impact on both environmental regulation and FDI in cities. In China, there is also a local competitive effect of environmental regulation, albeit with significant regional differences.     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty,Fund Demand and Corporate Investment

Using a unique set of data on fund use by China’s listed companies, this paper examines how macroeconomic uncertainty works on corporate investment. The study shows that macroeconomic uncertainty affects corporate investment behavior through the three channels of external demand, liquidity demand and long-term fund demand. However, the result is influenced by expectations and can differ across firms depending on their economic cycle, shareholder character, industrial character and the financial constraints they are exposed to. Specifically, high macroeconomic uncertainty can weaken the positive roles of these channels, especially those of external demand and liquidity demand, in driving corporate investment. During economic upturns, the effect of these channels is the most evident among state-owned firms, manufacturing firms and low cash dividend firms. The lessons from this study are that macroeconomic policies should be leveraged taking account of the channels through which economic shocks find their way, and monetary policies have to be implemented by targeting microscopic fund demand.