从欧盟东扩看欧元前景

5月1日欧盟实施欧盟东扩，不仅使欧盟政治、经济力量扩大，而且欧盟区域化的延展将直接挑战对美国心理，两经济理念和金融竞争性虽然是长期战略目标，但短期因素依然在信心方面对美元具有支持和倾斜性，策略、技术优势不利于欧元。     

欧盟经济、欧元走势及其对中国的影响

该文分析了欧盟东扩后欧盟经济的增长前景、欧元的发展态势及其对中国经济的影响。文章认为，虽然仍然面临很多困难，但欧盟经济已经走出低迷，东扩将为欧盟经济增添新的活力，有利于欧元国际货币职能的更好发挥。这些因素总体上有利于中国经济发展和中欧经贸的开展，但欧元汇率的不确定将增加中国宏观经济调整的难度。     

欧盟峰会罅隙仍存

3月19日，20国集团（G20）伦敦峰会前两周，欧盟春季峰会在悲观的氛围中召开。在2009年欧盟经济增速急剧收缩的窘境下，欧盟领导人依旧不愿统一加大刺激经济的力度。     

外部环境变化对满洲里口岸进出口和国际收支的影响

一、外部环境变化对我国出口贸易的影响（一）出口增长速度放缓。由于外贸对中国经济增长具有非常重要的作用,而美国、欧盟又是中国两个最大的出口市场,因而美国经济放缓和欧盟需求下降,将使我国整体外部环境趋紧。     

欧盟东扩对发展中国家的经济影响

欧盟东扩所带来的贸易转移效果和欧盟对外援助方向的改变使非、加、太发展中国家成为直接受害者，同时它也标志着欧盟对发展中国家的经济政策已开始摆脱带有原殖民体系痕迹的模式而进入“后殖民体系”时期。一旦中东欧国家在21世纪初成为欧盟正式成员，亚洲发展中国家也将在欧盟市场上面临严峻的挑战。     

希腊若退出欧元区，对中国的影响不可低估

目前，希腊正处于退出欧元区的门槛。 如果希腊真的退出了欧元区，那么其影响将是巨大的和长期的。 短期来看，欧盟经济将进一步恶化，甚至可能会出现“日本式”的经济衰落。长期来看，欧盟的贸易政策可能将更趋于保守，国际金融体系也可能会出现进一步的不稳定。     

国有商业银行在欧盟市场准入问题上的思考

2004年5月欧盟再次东扩后，欧盟成为世界最大的经济体和中国的最大贸易伙伴，因此进入欧盟市场成为中国国有商业银行实施跨国经营战略中不可或缺的一环。目前，我国国有商业银行主要通过建立分行或子银行的方式进入欧盟市场。本文通过对欧盟及其成员国相关银行法律的介绍，提出针对我国国有商业银行在欧盟市场准入问题中的对策建议，即短期内整合现有机构，通过建立子银行的方式来利用欧盟单一银行执照和全能银行业务两个市场机会；中期目标是拓展北欧、南欧和东欧市场，并将丹麦和波兰作为重点选择国家；另外，还建议将兼并收购作为国有商业银行进入欧盟市场的一项长期战略。     

欧盟金融监管体系改革及其对欧盟对外关系的影响北大核心

2007年金融危机以来,欧盟对其金融监管体系进行了全面改革,改革的核心原则是将各成员国的监管权力"上移"至欧盟层次机构。欧盟新的监管体系使欧盟金融监管方面出现了新特征,由此欧盟的对外经济关系也将发生一些变化。从短期来看,这些影响对欧盟对外关系的挑战大于机遇。     

德国及欧盟2005年经济状况回顾

2005年,受欧元对美元汇率居高不下和油价飙升双重影响,欧盟经济增长率预计为1.3%。2005年上半年,欧盟经济增长基本处于停滞状态,从下半年开始,欧盟各项经济指标出现明显好转。预计2006年欧盟整体经济增速将有所加快,平均增长率可达到1.8%。2005年,欧盟经济各项指标趋向好转第一,服务业形势好转。服务业在欧盟内部经济指标中占据70%-80%的增长空间,由于全年世界经济整体增长速度加快,促使全球服务业增量提高,欧盟区内外服务业竞争优势得以充分发挥。服务业形势好转,已成为欧盟经济稳步增长的主要动力之一。第二,制造业景气回升。对于欧盟来说…     

欧盟通过经济刺激计划

欧盟成员国领导人在12月12目结束的首脑会议上就一项总额约2000亿欧元的刺激经济计划达成一致。这一出资规模相当于欧盟国内生产总值的1.5％，其中300亿欧元将来自欧盟预算，其余则来自各国“自救”计划。     

Contemporaneous Spillover Effects between the U.S. and the U.K. Equity Markets

We use high frequency data and the “identification through heteroskedasticity” approach of Rigobon (2003) to capture the contemporaneous volatility spillover effects between the U.S. and U.K. equity markets. We demonstrate the relevance of taking into account the information present during simultaneous trading hours by comparing the results generated by our structural vector autoregression with those of a traditional reduced-form vector autoregression. Our findings clearly demonstrate that contemporaneous relations matter and that ignoring them leads to inappropriate conclusions regarding the magnitude and direction of volatility spillover.     

Hamilton and the U.S. Financial Revolution

In these excerpts from their recently published collection of Alexander Hamilton's writings on “Finance, Credit, and Debt,” the authors provide an overview of “the neatest, quickest financial revolution in history”—the one that took place in the United States during the six‐year tenure of its first Treasury Secretary. Between Hamilton's appointment by Washington in September 1789 and his resignation in February 1795, and as foreshadowed in letters that Hamilton was writing as early as 1780 (as a 23‐year‐old colonel in the Revolutionary army), the new nation saw the emergence of virtually all of what the authors identify as the six key components of modern financial systems. The financial revolution that produced the American financial system was accomplished through the following six developments:

1. The establishment of effective institutions of public finance, including a well‐functioning Treasury debt market, that would enable the government to fund its operations, to restructure its then massive unpaid debts (much of it owed to foreigners), and, perhaps most important, to establish the public credit that would enable it to borrow ever larger amounts on favorable terms.
2. The founding, in 1791, of a central bank to aid and oversee the government's finances and serve as the main supervisor and coordinator of the country's emergent banking and financial systems. By 1795, the Bank of the United States had five offices in different states and thus the beginnings of a national branch banking system.
3. The creation, in 1791, of the U.S. dollar as the country's first national currency. With gold and silver as the monetary base into which bank notes and deposits were convertible, the dollar was endowed with the stability of value that would make it a sound basis for long‐term contracts (such as bonds) as well as a safe asset in which to hold savings. By 1795, all the states, which had earlier issued their own notes and currency, had become members of the national currency union.
4. The development of a private banking system by encouraging state governments to charter banks to support their own finances and lend to businesses and individual entrepreneurs. By 1795, the three state‐chartered U.S. banks that existed in 1789 had become 20, providing the beginnings, with the five offices of the central bank, of what would become a vibrant (if crisis‐prone) American banking system.
5. The establishment of securities markets designed to make financial assets—both government and private‐sector bonds, and equities (including stock in the Bank of the United States)—liquid and transferrable. By 1795, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston all had established organized exchanges for trading national as well as local bonds and, in some cases, stocks.
6. The growth of business corporations, financial (such as banks and insurance companies) as well as industrial (utilities, manufacturers, and road, bridge, and canal companies), thereby encouraging the pooling of individuals’ capital that would allow the creation of larger enterprises that could realize economies of scale.

Thanks to these six developments, the United States was transformed from a bankrupt and severely divided nation in 1789 with huge debts to overseas creditors to a country whose government in 1795 produced a large budget surplus and whose securities were viewed by foreigners as among the most creditworthy in the world. And that was important since, as Hamilton clearly foresaw from the start, the U.S. government would have to rely heavily on overseas capital to fund its operations.     

Pension Funds and the U.K. Economy

Abstract

The paper considers the impact of U.K. defined benefit (DB) pension plan unding and investment on the U.K. economy. It suggests that many conventional theories are based on incomplete or inconsistent economics. In particular, the author suggests that:

? An economy cannot really gain competitive advantage from high returns on the domestic assets in which pension funds invest.

? DB liabilities are essentially similar for most schemes and can be closely matched with bonds.

? Funding pension liabilities has no primary impact on individuals’ consumption and saving or on firms’ capital investment.

? Pension funds are not natural investors in the equity of new ventures.

The conclusion of the paper is that the most significant impact of pension funds on the U.K. economy relates to the costs imposed by extreme mismatching between their financial assets and liabilities. The author argues that such risks can, in essence, “crowd out” entrepreneurial risk. He asserts that the U.K. economy would gain from greater focus on the matching of these assets and liabilities, and that the best way to stimulate enterprise is by eliminating the frictional costs in the economy arising from current practices.     

Lobbying of accounting standard-setting bodies in the U.K. and the U.S.A.: A Downsian analysis

This paper examines the response of those affected by financial accounting standards to new accounting rules. The efforts of individuals and organizations to promote or obstruct such rules are described collectively as lobbying. The Downsian voting model provides the framework for the discussion of important aspects of lobbying, namely the characteristics of lobbyists, the timing of their lobbying and the methods they are likely to employ. The analysis is illustrated with examples drawn from U.K. and U.S. experience of standard-setting.     

Capital Inflows and the U.S. Housing Boom

We estimate an open‐economy vector autoregressive (VAR) model to study the effect of capital‐inflow shocks on the U.S. housing market. We look at different external shocks that generate capital inflows to the U.S., in particular “saving‐glut” shocks and foreign monetary‐policy expansions. The shocks are identified with theoretically robust sign restrictions derived from an open‐economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. Our findings suggest that capital inflows that result from “saving‐glut” shocks have a positive and persistent effect on real house prices and real residential investment.     

Seasonality in Stock Price Mean Reversion: Evidence from the U.S. and the U.K.

The evidence of slowly mean-reverting components in stock prices has been controversial. The hypothesis of stock price mean-reversion is tested using a regression model that yields the highest asymptotic power among a class of regression tests. Although the evidence that the equally weighted index of stocks exhibits mean-reversion is significant in the period 1926–1988, this phenomenon is entirely concentrated in January. In the post-war period both the equally weighted and the value-weighted indices exhibit seasonal mean-reversion in January. A similar phenomenon is also observed for the equally weighted index of stocks traded on the London Stock Exchange.     

Financial crises and the dynamics of the spillovers between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets

We examine the spillover dynamics between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets using the multivariate DECO-GJR-GARCH model and spillover index method. We identify time variations in volatility equicorrelation and significant dynamic spillovers between these stock markets, as well as an increased impact of uncertainty on spillovers. Spillovers between markets intensify after the inception of the global financial crisis and subsequent European sovereign debt crisis. We also find, following the commencement of the crisis periods, that the U.S., Brazilian, and Chinese markets are net volatility transmitters, whereas the Russian, Indian, and South African markets are net recipients. These results shed new light on the information transmission channels between the U.S. and BRICS stock markets.     

Health and the welfare of U.S. business

Business leaders continue to blame the skyrocketing cost of health care for jeopardizing the global competitiveness of U.S. industries, and they continue to turn to Washington for the solution. Yet after a study of 16 countries, Wharton researchers David Brailer and R. Lawrence Van Horn have discovered that health care costs do not directly hinder U.S. competitiveness. Their conclusion: there is indeed a health care crisis in the United States as well as a competitiveness crisis. But the two are unrelated, and confusing them makes it difficult to solve either one. The real problem, according to the authors, is the hands-off approach that employers typically adopt when it comes to health care. No matter how Washington responds to the health care crisis, employers must explore their own role in ensuring the health of their work force. And they must realize that their role can be a strategic one. Instead of containing costs by fine-tuning benefits packages, companies can control costs and improve health care delivery by treating health care like any other crucial component of production. Brailer and Van Horn propose three strategies for managing health care delivery: First, companies must intervene in the supply side of the health care market. This may mean creating a clinic alone or with other companies, or joining with other companies to procure health care. Second, companies need to translate corporate health benefits into the most cost-effective set of services at the local level. Finally, companies must encourage and educate employees to participate in decisions regarding health care delivery.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Equity cross-listings in the U.S. and the price of debt

Using a large panel from 46 countries over 20 years, we find that non-U.S. firms issue corporate bonds more frequently and at lower offering yields following an equity cross-listing on a U.S. exchange. Firms issue more bonds through public offerings instead of private placements and in foreign markets rather than at home, in both cases at significantly lower yields. Moreover, the debt-related benefits are concentrated among firms domiciled in countries with less private benefits of control, efficient debt enforcement, and developed bond markets, suggesting that equity cross-listings cannot completely offset the impact of weak home country institutions. The results support the notion that the monitoring, transparency, and visibility benefits brought about by equity cross-listings on U.S. exchanges are valuable to bond investors.