Return and Maturity Relationships for Treasury Auctions: Evidence from Turkey

The relationship between the interest rate and the maturity of newly issued bonds provides information on the debt dynamics of an economy as well as on the sustainability of its debt. Such information is crucial especially for countries that have debt‐rollover concerns due to financial stress and/or macroeconomic instability. This study investigates the relationship between treasury auction maturity, which also dictates the debt maturity, and auction interest rates. When the Turkish treasury auction data from 1988 to 2004 are analysed, a reciprocal linkage between auction interest rates and maturities can be observed, especially for the 1995–2000 period, when there were chronic high inflation, high political uncertainty, high public deficits and unsuccessful attempts at stabilisation. This suggests that under an adverse shock, the Treasury decreases the auction maturity in order not to increase interest rates too much. A change in this reciprocal relationship is also reported for the post‐2001 era, which is characterised by decreasing inflation, higher political stability, lower public deficits and successful stabilisation attempts.     

Changes in Expected Security Returns,Risk, and the Level of Interest Rates

Regressions of security returns on treasury bill rates provide insight about the behavior of risk in rational asset pricing models. The information in one-month bill rates implies time variation in the conditional covariances of portfolios of stocks and fixed-income securities with benchmark pricing variables, over extended samples and within five-year subperiods. There is evidence of changes in conditional “betas” associated with interest rates. Consumption and stock market data are examined as proxies for marginal utility, in a general framework for asset pricing with time-varying conditional covariances.     

关注欧洲日益扩大的负利率

随着欧债危机持续发酵，主要经济体开始酝酿或实施更宽松的货币政策，欧洲货币市场资金不断从高风险工具撤出并涌入低风险工具，导致边缘国家国债收益率持续攀升，核心国家与部分非欧元区国家市场利率不断下降。文章从市场行为角度解释了欧洲出现大面积负利率的原因，指出这一现象反映出欧洲货币市场的结构性问题，欧元区货币政策传导机制出现失灵值得关注。     

MEASURING CORPORATE TAX RATES AND TAX INCENTIVES: A NEW APPROACH

Taxes play an important but underemphasized role in the valuation of a company and its projects. For example, the authors estimate that the expected tax benefits from interest deductions by all publicly traded U.S. corporations were responsible for almost $1.4 trillion of their total market value of $12.7 trillion in 1991. In the case of RJR's 1989 leveraged buyout alone, the capitalized value of the interest tax shield amounted to several billion dollars (or about 25%) of the company's market value.
This article argues that, to maximize shareholder wealth, the corporate planning process should include a careful analysis of corporate tax incentives. Using several examples, the authors show how earnings variability and major provisions of the tax code interact to affect a company's expected marginal tax rate. After describing the complexities involved in properly calculating corporate tax rates, the article concludes by describing a simulation method the authors have developed to measure a company's effective marginal tax rate and, hence, its tax incentives to use more leverage (or some other means of reducing taxable income).
In furnishing a method for calculating marginal tax rates with greater accuracy, the authors also provide a clue to resolving the capital structure puzzle discussed in the roundtable at the head of this issue. In particular, their recent research corrects earlier studies in the finance literature by showing that when marginal tax rates are measured before financing (that is, based on income before interest expense is deducted), there is a positive relation between debt usage and tax rates.     

我国货币政策基准利率的述评及Shibor体系的完善

培育一个权威的基准利率作为利率体系中的定价基准是我国利率市场化的先决条件也是完善宏观价格调控的必然要求.受制于我国金融发展现状,基准利率呈现多元化,形成一年期存款利率、国债回购利率、央行票据发行利率和银行同业拆借利率等多种基准并存的格局.上海银行间同业拆借利率的高调推出,标志着其将成为我国基准利率的目标选择.而作为一个依靠行政手段推出的目标基准利率雏形,上海银行间同业拆借利率要想像发达国家那样真正承担起基准利率的全部功能,仍需要从其形成机制、传导机制以及运行环境多方面加以完善.     

RECOGNIZING MACROECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS IN VALUE BASED MANAGEMENT

Value Based Management (VBM) has become a common tool for evaluating corporate strategies and projects from the perspective of shareholder value maximization, and can be an important input for corporate compensation systems. But traditional VBM frameworks make no systematic effort to distinguish between changes in performance attributable to macroeconomic fluctuations beyond management's control and changes in performance that reflect the intrinsic competitive position of the firm.
The authors have developed an approach for "filtering out" the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on cash flows for purposes of performance evaluation. Such fluctuations are captured by changes in exchange rates, interest rates, and aggregate price levels (both domestically and abroad) that are significantly correlated with a particular company's cash flows. The authors also provide a method for distinguishing between expected and unanticipated cash flow effects of macro events and recommend insulating managers' performance only from the changes they cannot anticipate and manage. In applying the framework to Electrolux, a Swedish multinational, the authors show that unanticipated changes in the krona/pound exchange rate and various interest rates contribute significantly to the variability of the firm's cash flows; and with the help of the sensitivity coefficients used to measure such exposures, they calculate measures of "intrinsic" cash flow that are purged of such macro effects.     

中国地方政府债务管理制度与能力测评——基于世界银行DeMPA模型

基于世界银行地方政府DeMPA模型,予以修正后的测评代表省份的地方政府债务管理制度设计和执行绩效。结果显示：我国地方政府债务总体管理制度和能力达到或超过国际合格标准;制度性指标（法律框架、管理结构等）评分各省基本趋同;实践性指标（债务报告、数据记录等）东部和中部省份略优于西部省份,国际接轨多的省份略优于其他省份;普遍表现薄弱的指标集中在债务管理中期战略、债务数据管理、国库现金管理和政府隐性债务方面。     

Firms' Off-Balance Sheet and Hybrid Debt Financing: Evidence from Their Book-Tax Reporting Differences

We match large U.S. corporations' tax returns during 1989–2001 to their financial statements to construct a firm‐level proxy of firms' use of off‐balance sheet and hybrid debt financing. We find that firms with less favorable prior‐period Standard & Poor's (S&P) bond ratings or higher leverage ratios in comparison to their industry report greater amounts of interest expense on their tax returns than to investors and creditors on their financial statements. These between‐firm results are consistent with credit‐constrained firms using more structured financing arrangements. Our within‐firm tests also suggest that firms use more structured financing arrangements when they enter into contractual loan agreements that provide incentives to manage debt ratings. Specifically, we find that after controlling for S&P bond rating and industry‐adjusted leverage, our sample firms report greater amounts of interest expenses for tax than for financial statement purposes when they enter into performance pricing contracts that use senior debt rating covenants to set interest rates. Furthermore, we find that the greatest book‐tax reporting changes occur when firms become closer to violating these debt rating covenants. These latter findings are consistent with firms' contractual debt covenants influencing their use of off‐balance sheet and hybrid debt financing.     

Debt contract strictness and auditor specialization

The conflicts of interest among managers, shareholders and creditors resulting in agency costs, can be mitigated by restricting managers’ adverse behavior, through financial covenants to better align the various stakeholder interests. Thus, debt contract strictness represents an important aspect of agency costs between creditors, shareholders, and management that is not always captured by interest rates. The contract setting provides a unique opportunity to investigate how creditors may rely on auditors to alleviate information uncertainty stemming from reliance on management's financial reporting and thus alleviate the creditor's potential loss of invested capital. After controlling for borrower risks, loan characteristics, and audit factors, we show that auditor industry specialization is significantly associated with a reduction in the strictness of debt contracts, consistent with creditors viewing certain industry expert auditors as effective monitors against financial reporting manipulation aimed at the avoidance of debt covenant triggers that protect creditors against potential loss. Further, we find that the association between loan strictness and auditor specialization is attenuated by stronger corporate governance systems, external monitors, and prior lender relationships.     

以Shibor为基准强化金融产品利率市场化

该文分析认为市场化基准利率的缺失已成为利率市场化产品定价的主要困难之一,认为将Shibor建成我国市场化的基准利率体系是人民币利率市场化必由之路,同时将大幅完善产品的市场化定价机制;而通过建立以Shibor为基础的内部资金转移定价体系,可将市场信号传导至业务端,在现行条件下能使管制利率下的存贷款利率部分实现与市场化利率的接轨。     

The Canadian treasury bill auction and the term structure of interest rates

This paper examines the efficiency of the Canadian treasury bill market as measured by the performance of the expectations model of the term structure of interest rates. In particular, market efficiency is shown to depend upon certain institutional features of the treasury bill auction process. Building on past work by B. Campbell and J.W. Galbraith [Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 59 (2) (1997) 265–284], the paper establishes links between rejections of efficiency and high absolute values of the spread between six- and three-month interest rates. The major contribution of the paper is to then show that a link exists between weeks in which spreads are large and weeks in which accepted auction yields show a large degree of dispersion. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for the term structure literature and for possible auction configurations currently under consideration in Canada and the US.     

基准利率和基准收益率曲线的内涵及关系探讨

我国相继推出基准利率SHIBOR和银行间国债收益率曲线、央行票据收益率曲线与政策性金融债收益率曲线等三条基准收益率曲线,备受瞩目。那么,基准利率和基准收益率曲线的内涵有什么不同?二者之间是怎样的关系?搞清楚这些问题,对引导我国基准利率的选择和培育及完善基准收益率曲线的构建,提高货币当局宏观调控效率和促进我国金融市场的发展,具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。本文对这些问题进行了深入探讨。     

中国高额持有美国国债的风险与对策

美国国债曾是公认的最安全的投资品。2001年以来,中国持有的美国国债随外汇储备的快速增长而增加;美国国债规模也随美国"双赤字"的扩大而膨胀。美国的政治生态及美元的霸权特性使得美国的"双赤字"难于控制,美国国债的潜在风险日益显现。中国主要面临退出困难及债权资产实际价值可能大幅缩水的困扰。建议中国利用最大债主的地位制约美国以维护自身权益;同时控制外汇储备增量优化外汇储备结构以掌握风险控制的主动权。     

Estimating the Tax Advantage of Corporate Debt

This paper presents estimates of the effective tax value of incremental interest deductions for corporations taking into account that they may not be able to utilize all their interest deductions fully because of either insufficient taxable income or the availability of nondebt tax shields. After describing particular features of the tax code which may drive a wedge between statutory and effective tax rates for debt finance, we present estimates using the Treasury Corporate Tax Model of effective tax rates for a variety of industry groupings. Our estimates suggest that the after-tax cost of debt varies widely across industries.     

澳大利亚利率市场化改革与其金融体系效率的改善

文章分析了澳大利亚自上世纪70年代开始实施的包括利率市场化改革在内的金融自由化改革给该国经济金融运行带来的积极变化。为巩固银行业地位、提高金融体系效率,澳大利亚从上世纪70年代开始实施改革,放松金融管制,主要包括取消对银行业存贷款利率限制、放开国债利率、取消外汇管制、改革证券市场等。改革后,银行业竞争能力增强,金融市场迅速发展,但也出现了信用过度扩张和股票市场过度繁荣等现象。澳大利亚在此后采取的金融监管体制改革,维护了金融系统的稳定运行。     

Interest Rate Risk Management in Major Finnish Firms

The interest rate policies of Finnish firms appear risk aversive, but hedging decisions are influenced by market view. Managers find they can forecast trends in interest rate development, and employ the forecasts in the choice of debt and hedging instruments. The use of risk assessment methods and hedging instruments are related to firm size but not to leverage. Most frequently employed hedging instruments are interest rate swaps and forward rate agreements. The respondents find their firms' interest rate risk management is successful, but performance is seldom measured against an explicitly defined benchmark.     

INTEGRATING RISK MANAGEMENT AND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Capital management and risk management are two sides of the same coin. But by treating them separately, the conventional theory and practice of corporate finance fails to account for important connections between them. Moreover, an exclusive focus on debt and equity ignores the full range of capital resources available to a corporation, thus distorting management's view of the firm's cost of capital (and its return on equity).
An understanding of the role of corporate capital–including off-balance sheet as well as paid-up capital—and its relationship to the riskiness of a firm's activities provides the foundation on which the author builds a corporate finance framework that ties together both the insurance and capital markets. This framework, called the "Insurative Model," captures the economics of both conventional insurance and corporate finance instruments and embraces a wide variety of solutions and instruments—be they debt, equity, insurance, derivative, contingent capital, or any other—and allows managers to evaluate their effectiveness in a consistent, unified way.
The Insurative Model demonstrates that a company's decisions on insurance and risk retention can be just as important as its decisions about its debt-equity mix. In fact, the determination of a firm's optimal debt-equity ratio should be the last in a series of capital and risk management decisions. Earlier decisions should address risk retention, risk transfer, and the optimal amounts and structure of off-balance-sheet capital used to support the company's retained risks.     

如何治理企业脱实向虚？——基于利率市场化改革的效用识别、异质性特征与机制检验

借助2007-2017年沪深两市A股上市公司数据,检验利率市场化对企业金融化的影响。研究发现：利率市场化能够有效治理企业的脱实向虚行为,且对不同状态企业的金融化行为有较强的异质性影响。机制研究表明,利率市场化能够降低企业债务融资成本,提升企业财务稳定性,这有助于驱动企业降低金融化水平。在现有范式基础上嵌入银行业发展因素,发现只有在较好的银行业发展基础上,利率市场化驱动企业去金融化的作用才能有效释放。为此,我国应进一步完善利率市场化的体制机制,针对不同经济主体提供差异化的政策支持,疏通利率市场化的传导渠道,从而抑制企业的脱实向虚倾向。     

成长性、代理冲突与公司财务政策

本文基于成长性、代理冲突与公司财务政策之系统关联的多维视角分析,着眼于将成长性差异作为一个关键变量时,考察其是否可以成为影响公司代理冲突及其治理与公司财务政策选择的一个重要基础。本文理论分析表明:作为一种制度环境———尤其是作为新兴/转轨经济国家行业与公司的典型特征,成长性差异显著影响公司财务政策;公司治理与公司业绩的关系受制于成长性的高低,成长性通过投资决策、融资选择与股利政策等关键财务政策的中介作用影响公司治理与其价值的相关性;在财务政策中投资决策更具有基础性,融资政策与股利政策都基于提高投资效率而进行选择,将成长性差异影响与公司投资决策相结合、或在公司的投资等关键财务政策的研究和实践之中深入考量成长机会影响,将使得代理冲突及其公司治理更具有针对性和有效性;高成长性可以成为公司治理环境改善的一种有效基础,深入关注(高)成长性的显著"公司治理效应",可以为公司代理冲突及其治理、以及其投融资选择等关键财务政策提供更为清晰的决策信号。     

The Relationships Between Mortgage Rates and Capital-Market Rates Under Alternative Market Conditions

Mortgage interest rates have become more integrated with other capital-market interest rates over recent decades, apparently as a result of the deregulation of financial markets. The link is both imperfect and time-varying. Mortgage rates during some time periods appear to be sticky with respect to their adjustment to changes in capital-market rates. We examine the relationship between weekly conventional mortgage rates and the interest rates on treasury and corporate securities under differing market conditions. We draw three conclusions based on the analysis. First, deregulation changed the link between mortgage rates and riskless interest rates, which confirms the findings of Goebel and Ma (1993). Second, mortgage rates were cointegrated with risky interest rates even before deregulation. Third, the link between mortgage rates and the risky bond rate can be associated with the behavior of the risk premium in the bond rate. The observed relationship is consistent with the stickiness observed by Haney (1988) and causes a more pronounced stickiness when rates are falling than when they are rising.