Macroeconomic influences on optimal asset allocation

We develop a tactical asset allocation strategy that incorporates the effects of macroeconomic variables. The joint distribution of financial asset returns and the macroeconomic variables is modelled using a VAR with a multivariate GARCH (M-GARCH) error structure. As a result, the portfolio frontier is time varying and subject to contagion from the macroeconomic variable. Optimal asset allocation requires that this be taken into account. We illustrate how to do this using three risky UK assets and inflation as a macroeconomic factor. Taking account of inflation generates portfolio frontiers that lie closer to the origin and offers investors superior risk-return combinations.     

Hedging,financing, and investment decisions: Theory and empirical tests

In this paper we theoretically and empirically examine the interaction between hedging, financing, and investment decisions. A simple equilibrium model with costly financial distress suggests that as firms become more efficient at risky investments vis a vis low risk investments, they will borrow less, invest more in risky assets, and hedge more. The model also predicts a positive relationship between hedging and leverage – a result consistent with debt capacity arguments. We test the model empirically using a simultaneous equations framework to investigate the determinants of firm-level hedging, financing and investing decisions. The results strongly support the hypothesis that the hedging, financing and investment decisions are jointly determined. In addition, we find strong support for the central hypothesis that firms more efficient investing in risky technologies more aggressively hedge and use less debt financing in order to maximize their comparative advantage.     

新常态下的居民投资理财研究——基于均值-方差模型下的大类资产配置

随着《关于规范金融机构资产管理业务的指导意见》的落地,我国资产管理行业的发展进入了新常态。我国居民的投资期限及投资工具将发生明显变化,包括:产品投资期限可能大幅延长;投资工具的主要形态将由传统的预期收益型理财产品转化为净值型产品。本文重点探讨在行业管理新规的新常态下,居民如何通过合理的大类资产配置实现有效投资。本文在均值-方差模型(Mean-Variance Model)的基础上,结合过去12年我国股票、债券、货币、黄金和国债五大类资产的投资数据,构建有效边界(Efficient Frontier),并在此基础上寻得夏普比率(Sharpe Ratio)最高的风险资产组合,进而绘制资本市场线(Capital Market Line)。通过对资本市场线及有效边界上若干组合的实证检验,本文发现:通过对大类资产的合理组合,可以为投资者带来长期稳定的投资回报;因流动性需求,投资者进行中短期投资时,低预期收益目标的投资组合表现更优。     

中国居民资产配置趋势及商业银行对策

从近年来中国居民金融资产变化情况来看,在金融资产总量急剧增加的同时,资产结构也由原来单一的银行资产向多元化方向发展,但储蓄存款仍居主导地位,人均居民金融资产水平也较低。后危机时期居民金融资产总量增长空间仍然较大,资产多元化趋势将更加明显,这意味着储蓄存款将持续减少,而证券、基金、保险、信托、银行理财产品等新型金融产品的投资将日益扩大,居民资产配置以储蓄为主的格局仍将持续较长时间。这为商业银行发展带来两个机遇:一是为商业银行实现经营转型带来了发展机遇;二是为商业银行个人资产管理业务带来了发展机遇。     

管理者团队特征、金融资产配置与实体企业信用风险

基于实体企业信用风险视角,本文探讨金融资产配置效果,并考察管理者团队特征对金融资产配置效果的调节作用。研究发现,增加金融资产配置可减少实体企业信用风险,但长期看,金融资产的风险缓冲作用在逐渐减弱;管理者团队年龄越大、任期越长的企业,越倾向于增加金融资产配置,这有助于减少实体企业信用风险,而管理者团队学历对金融资产配置与信用风险之间的调节作用不明显。进一步研究发现董事长年龄越大、任期越长,管理者团队的年龄及任期对金融资产配置效果的影响越弱。本文研究拓展了实体企业配置金融资产的经济后果分析,对优化管理者团队结构、降低企业信用风险具有启示意义。     

Corporate asset purchases and sales: Theory and evidence

Purchases and sales of operating assets by firms generated $162 billion for shareholders over the past 20 years. This contrasts sharply with the evidence on mergers. This paper characterizes the behavior of value-maximizing firms, which could grow organically, purchase existing assets, or sell assets. The approach yields an endogenous selection model that links asset purchases and sales to fundamental properties of the firm. Empirical tests confirm the predictions of the model. In particular, return on assets and size strongly predict when firms purchase or sell assets, and the transaction size covaries with the value of capital employed by the firm. These findings indicate that corporate asset purchases and sales are consistent with efficient investment decisions.     

风险资产配置与货币政策规则——黏性价格均衡下的宏观资产配置模型初探

本文将一个基于动态新凯恩斯理论的连续时间黏性价格一般均衡模型与随机动态资产配置模型相结合,进而研究基于内生宏观经济动态和货币政策规则进行资产配置的问题。在最优配置策略下,投资者相对风险偏好随无风险名义利率的增大而单调减小,而随通胀率的变化呈“U”型,说明投资者在通胀偏离稳态幅度较大时配置风险资产的相对意愿较高。此外,本文也给出了使用该模型讨论投资者最大化跨期效用对经济反作用这一宏观审慎问题的方式。     

社会互动与家庭金融资产配置

运用中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,研究社会互动与家庭金融资产配置之间的关系。研究发现,适当增强社会互动会促进家庭更多地参与风险金融市场,增加投资风险资产的比例,提高金融资产的分散化程度,优化资产的配置效率。但当社会互动达到一定程度后,过度的社会互动则会抑制家庭参与风险市场,减少风险资产的投资比重,降低金融资产的分散化程度以及资产配置的有效性。因此,家庭需要建立适度而高质量的社会互动,这有助于家庭获得更多的外部资源,缓解信息不对称,降低交易成本,从而优化家庭金融资产配置。     

Corporate governance and capital allocations of diversified firms

We examine how various aspects of corporate governance structures affect the capital allocation inefficiency that drives the value discounts of diversified firms. Diversified firms with more effective internal or external governance mechanisms experience more efficient investment allocations at both the firm and segment levels and show less of a diversification discount. The efficiency of the investment allocation process is better for diversified firms with high board independence, low board busyness, high institutional ownership, high outside director ownership, high CEO equity-based pay, high audit quality, and strong shareholder rights. The results hold after controlling for other potential influences. Our evidence suggests that corporate governance considerations are important in assessing the relation between investment efficiency and firm value for diversified firms.     

Asset liquidity,corporate investment,and endogenous financing costs

We analyze how the liquidity of real and financial assets affects corporate investment. The trade-off between liquidation costs and underinvestment costs implies that low-liquidity firms exhibit negative investment sensitivities to liquid funds, whereas high-liquidity firms have positive sensitivities. If real assets are not divisible in liquidation, firms with high financial liquidity optimally avoid external financing and instead cut new investment. If real assets are divisible, firms use external financing, which implies a lower sensitivity. In addition, asset redeployability decreases the investment sensitivity. Our findings demonstrate that asset liquidity is an important determinant of corporate investment.     

Unemployment insurance: Risk sharing versus efficiency

Two models of spot labor markets are presented in which labor suppliers have heterogeneous attitudes towards effort and in which uncertainty prevails on labor productivity and growth. The problem of selecting efficient rules to manage unemployment insurance (UI) systems is considered. We show that there does not exist any system which combines an efficient allocation of labor with an efficient allocation of risks among employees, unemployed workers and capital-owners. Pareto-efficient policy rules are a best compromise between these two conflicting objectives. It implies that productive efficiency could be improved in periods of mass unemployment by reducing UI benefits. That would be at the expense of more inefficiencies in the sharing of macroeconomic risks. At the optimum, the UI benefit is positively correlated to growth and it is negatively correlated to labor productivity.     

What is the impact of wealth shocks on asset allocation?

I test the assumption of constant relative risk aversion using U.S. macroeconomic data and analyse the role of wealth shocks in generating transitory changes in asset portfolio composition. I show that the risky asset share exhibits cyclical behavior and it is significantly (and positively) affected by unexpected variation in wealth. Therefore, the empirical evidence suggests that risk aversion is counter-cyclical. I also find that the portfolio share of housing wealth falls when the agent is faced with a positive wealth shock, i.e. housing is a hedge against unfavorable wealth fluctuations. Finally, considering a variety of wealth definitions, the results show that: (i) wealth effects are stronger for direct holdings of risky assets than for indirect holdings, which highlights that investors do not typically trade some assets such as pension or mutual funds; (ii) although significant, wealth effects on asset allocation are mainly temporary as agents quickly rebalance the asset portfolio composition (i.e. there is weak evidence of inertia or slow adjustment in asset allocation); and (iii) changes in expected returns partially explain the variation in risky asset allocation.     

Hedging inflation risk in a developing economy: The case of Brazil

Inflation shocks are one of the pitfalls of developing economies and are usually difficult to hedge. This paper examines the optimal strategic asset allocation for a Brazilian investor seeking to hedge inflation risk at different horizons, ranging from one to 30 years. Using a vector-autoregressive specification to model inter-temporal dependency across variables, we measure the inflation hedging properties of domestic and foreign investments and carry out a portfolio optimisation. Our results show that foreign currencies complement traditional assets very efficiently when hedging a portfolio against inflation: around 70% of the portfolio should be dedicated to domestic assets (equities, inflation-linked (IL) bonds and nominal bonds), whereas 30% should be invested in foreign currencies, especially the US dollar and the euro.     

Macroeconomic volatility and external imbalances

Does macroeconomic volatility/uncertainty affects accumulation of net foreign assets? In OECD economies over the period 1970–2012, changes in country specific aggregate volatility are, after controlling for a wide array of factors, significantly positively associated with net foreign asset position. A standard open economy model with time varying macroeconomic uncertainty can quantitatively account for this relationship. The key mechanism is precautionary motive: more uncertainty induces residents to save more, and higher savings are in part channeled into foreign assets. Data and theory suggest that volatility is an important determinant of the medium/long run evolution of external imbalances in developed countries.     

A tale of two Us: Corporate leverage and financial asset allocation in China

Firms choose to make liquid and illiquid financial investments due to different motives and, therefore, how they relate to corporate leverage may exhibit different non-linear shapes. On the one hand, firms hold liquid financial assets to hedge against external uncertainty and liquidity shocks based on the “precautionary saving” motive. This implies a positive U-shaped relationship between the leverage ratio and liquid financial asset allocation. On the other hand, firms allocate illiquid financial assets due to the “investment substitution” motive to earn high yields. This leads to an inverted U-shaped relationship between the leverage ratio and illiquid financial asset holdings. Using financial data of Chinese listed firms from 2007 to 2017, we verify the above theoretical predictions. Further analysis finds factors such as internal and external risks, financing environment, and total factor productivity to be important determinants of corporate financial asset allocation.     

资本约束对商业银行资产配置行为的影响——基于175家商业银行数据的经验研究

本文使用1998～2009年我国175家商业银行的资产配置数据,研究了资本监管制度对银行资产配置行为的影响。本文发现,现行的资本监管制度对银行资产配置行为具有重要影响,资本监管制度实施之后,银行依据自身资本水平调整资产结构,资本充足银行持有更多的风险资产,贷款比例较高;而资本不足银行则减持风险资产,贷款比例下降。此外,由于不同规模商业银行面临的融资约束不同,资本水平对资产配置行为的影响存在一定的差异,资本对城市及农村商业银行的约束效应更明显。本文的这些发现为监管当局的资本监管政策提供了经验证据,并提出进行差异化监管的政策建议。     

International asset allocation for incompletely-informed investors

This study explains the home bias puzzle by examining the effect of information quality on the asset allocation decisions. Our calibration results based on MSCI data indicate that in order to hedge for the changing quality of the information, when updating their estimates of expected returns of foreign assets, those agents who are partially informed and relatively more conservative will tend to hold fewer foreign assets than completely-informed agents. Furthermore, the magnitude of home bias in the portfolio of partially-informed agents decreases with the precision of their estimates and the instantaneous correlation between the returns of the home and foreign assets.     

中国非金融企业金融化的影响因素分析

作为经济金融化微观层面的重要表现,非金融企业金融化现象日益凸显.以2001-2014年我国A股上市的非金融企业为研究对象,借助Eviews6.0软件,运用最小二乘法,从宏观和微观两个层面实证分析我国非金融企业金融化的影响因素.研究表明:企业的金融化程度随着其股东价值最大化观念的增强而加深,企业金融资产持有比例与其主营业务利润率呈U型关系,稳定的宏观经济环境会弱化企业的金融投资行为.     

Timing exchange rates using order flow: The case of the Loonie

This paper examines the relation between the Canadian dollar/US dollar (CAD) exchange rate and foreign exchange order flow employing a novel data set on CAD order flow over the period 1994–2005. We investigate empirically the predictive information content and the determinants of order flow. The results suggest that order flow has strong out-of-sample predictive power for CAD returns, yielding significant market timing ability and tangible economic gains in a stylized dynamic asset allocation context. In terms of its determinants, order flow appears to reflect not only the menu of macroeconomic variables typically suggested in the literature but is also closely related to commodity price fluctuations, as expected from a ‘commodity currency’.     

News announcements and price discovery in foreign exchange spot and futures markets

This paper studies competition in price discovery between spot and futures rates for the EUR–USD and JPY–USD markets around scheduled macroeconomic announcements. Using both the information shares approach and the common factor component weight approach for futures prices from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), as well as deal prices from spot trading on the Electronic Broking Services (EBS), we gauge how foreign exchange spot and futures markets respond to news surprises. The results show that the spot rates provide more price discovery than do the CME futures rates overall; however, the contribution of the futures rates to price discovery increases in the time surrounding macroeconomic announcement releases.