International spillovers in global asset markets

The paper empirically estimates the financial transmission within and across bond and equity markets in the four largest global financial markets – the United States, the Euro area, Japan, and the United Kingdom. We argue that international bond and equity markets are highly interconnected both within and across asset classes in a globalized world, where the complex transmission process across various financial assets is not restricted to just the domestic market. This paper employs identification through generalized forecast error variance decompositions to estimate spillovers across four systemic markets in a Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework. We find that asset prices react most strongly to international shocks within the same asset class, but that there are also substantial international spillovers across asset classes. Rolling estimations analysis provides evidence that global asset markets have become more integrated and that the bilateral relationships change over time. Our results are robust to specifications that take into account the monetary policy stance and include foreign exchange markets.     

上市公司会计信息披露模式的比较研究

上市公司是证券市场的主要组成要素,其会计信息质量的好坏对证券市场的发展起举足轻重的作用。在证券市场发达的国家,对上市公司的会计信息从披露到监管都作了严格的规范。本文将从证券发达的美国和日本的会计信息披露体系出发,来讨论我国上市公司的会计信息披露模式。     

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.     

城市化与产业结构升级的两种模式

为探寻发达国家城市化的经验与教训,对美、英、法、德、日五国城市化与产业结构升级的关系进行了分析,并对美、德两国城市化与产业结构升级的关系进行了格兰杰因果检验。研究发现,以美国为代表的内生集中型城市化模式和以德国为代表的外生均衡型城市化模式代表了城市化与产业结构升级关系当中的两种不同模式。其中,德国模式不仅在快速城市化的同时避免了严重的"城市病",而且对产业结构升级起到了积极的推动作用。     

National pricing with local quality competition

We study the incentives of national retail chains to adopt national (uniform) prices across local markets that differ in size and competition intensity. In addition to price, the chains may also compete along a quality dimension, and quality is always set locally. We show that absent quality competition, the chains will never use national pricing. However, if quality competition is sufficiently strong there exist equilibria where at least one of the chains adopts national pricing. We also identify cases in which national pricing benefits (harms) all consumers, even in markets where such a pricing strategy leads to higher (lower) prices.     

Contract equilibria in housing markets

The paper provides a contractual equilibrium model of differentiated housing markets. Within a competitive framework the existence of a contract equilibrium, respecting certain enforceability conditions, is shown. The allocation, induced by these contract equilibria in the housing markets, is possibly characterized by demand rationing, even under the assumption of free contract markets.     

The Valuation-relevance of Earnings and Cash Flows: an International Perspective

We investigate which variable, earnings or cash flows, provides greater information for equity valuation within the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and Japan. We regress returns on earnings and cash flow metrics. We generally find earnings developed in three Anglo-Saxon countries—where capital is traditionally raised in public markets and reporting rules are unencumbered by taxation requirements—to have greater explanatory power for stock returns than cash flow metrics. Conversely, in two non-Anglo-Saxon countries—where capital is traditionally raised from private sources—earnings are generally not superior to cash flows for equity valuation, except in Japan, non-consolidated sample. While sensitivity analyses generally support the conclusions of our primary tests, in some of the additional analyses, earnings were superior to cash flows for samples from all countries. As expected, in all countries earnings have incremental information content over cash flows in explaining returns. Collectively, our findings provide two contributions. First, we generalize the findings of prior US research by showing that earnings are more important than cash flows for equity valuation in other Anglo-Saxon countries. Second and more importantly, our findings demonstrate that the superiority of earnings over cash flows is not universal. Rather, it depends on the national reporting regime and attendant institutional factors.     

Integrating environmental management and supply chain strategies

The decisions related to managing the supply chain and supply chain strategy are already considered important in many organizations. As more executives adopt environmental practices, supply chain strategies will only increase in importance. In this paper, we review how companies develop environmental supply chain strategies. Our interviews with companies from The United States, The United Kingdom, Japan and Korea, along with prior research, are used to develop a framework for environmental supply chain strategy decision‐making. We then use this framework to suggest guidelines for how companies might change their current supply chain practices to successfully integrate environmental issues into their supply chain strategy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Does City Structure Affect Job Search and Welfare?

We develop a model in which workers' search efficiency is negatively affected by access to jobs. Workers' location in a city is endogenous and reflects a trade-off between commuting costs and the surplus associated with search. Different configurations emerge in equilibrium; notably, the unemployed workers may reside far away (segregated city) or close to jobs (integrated city). We prove that there exists a unique and stable market equilibrium in which both land and labor markets are solved for simultaneously. We find that, despite inefficient search in the segregated city equilibrium, the welfare difference between the two equilibria is not so large due to differences in commuting costs. We also show how a social planner can manipulate wages by subsidizing/taxing the transport costs and can accordingly restore the efficiency.     

A disaggregated approach to test the J-Curve phenomenon: Japan versus her major trading partners

A limited number of studies have tested the J-Curve phenomenon using bilateral trade data between the United States and its major trading partners. In this paper, we test the J-Curve hypothesis by using quarterly bilateral data over the 1973–98 period between Japan and its nine major trading partners. We demonstrate that when aggregate data are used, there is no evidence of the J-Curve in the short run or any significant relation between trade balance and effective exchange rate in the long run. However, when bilateral data are employed, we find evidence of the J-Curve between Japan and Germany as well as between Japan and Italy. We also find that real depreciation of the yen has favorable long-run effects in the cases of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.     

中国银行间市场利率结构、信息溢出与形成机制研究

目前全球主要货币市场已高度融合,而中国银行间市场各利率品种间信息传递尽管比国际市场间更顺畅,但利率结构矛盾突出。同一品种不同期限之间利率差异显著,但缺乏共同时间价值基础;同一期限不同品种之间利率水平较接近,但功能定位不清晰。且这些矛盾与利率的内在形成机制一致。此外,利率水平偏高、风险居中的特征使得中国银行间市场对国际资本很有诱惑。这些问题如不尽快解决,中国银行间市场就很难在利率市场化中彰显基础作用,甚至可能在开放过程中被国际游资操纵。     

Constrained suboptimality when prices are non-competitive

The paper addresses the following question: how efficient is the market system in allocating resources if trade takes place at prices that are not competitive? Even though there are many partial answers to this question, an answer that stands comparison to the rigor by which the first and second welfare theorems are derived is lacking. We first prove a “Folk Theorem” on the generic suboptimality of equilibria at non-competitive prices. The more interesting problem is whether equilibria are constrained optimal, i.e. efficient relative to all allocations that are consistent with prices at which trade takes place. We discuss an optimality notion due to Bénassy, and argue that this notion admits no general conclusions. We then turn to the notion of p-optimality and give a necessary condition, called the separating property, for constrained optimality: each constrained household should be constrained in each constrained market. If the number of commodities is less than or equal to two, the case usually treated in the textbook, then this necessary condition is also sufficient. In that case equilibria are constrained optimal. When there are three or more commodities, two or more constrained households, and two or more constrained markets, this necessary condition is typically not sufficient and equilibria are generically constrained suboptimal.     

Uniqueness of Arrow-Debreu and Arrow-Radner equilibrium when utilities are additively separable

This survey paper has three purposes: We first present in finite dimension, different approaches to the problem of uniqueness of Arrow-Debreu equilibrium when agents have additively separable utilities. We then study how, in the specific framework of a two period contingent good economy the results obtained generalize to infinite dimension. We consider economies where agents' consumption space is and agents' utilities are additively separable. Lastly, we show that in some restricted settings, some results may be used to prove uniqueness of Arrow-Radner equilibria when there are incomplete financial markets.     

Replicating Walrasian equilibria using markets for membership in labor-managed firms

In standard models of the labor-managed firm, labor is misallocated in the short run. This problem can be eliminated by introducing a market for membership in each firm. These markets substitute for the capitalist labor market and support equilibria isomorphic to Walrasian equilibria. Such LMFs resemble familiar Ward-Domar-Vanek LMFs by ensuring that firm sizes are optimal for ex post members, but they also have the property that firm sizes are optimal for workers endowed with ex ante membership rights.     

INTER‐CITY BUS SERVICES IN CANADA – TIME FOR DEREGULATION

The regulatory framework for inter‐city bus operators in Canada is facing multiple challenges with regard to productivity, consumer satisfaction and cost controls. In spite of government reports calling for deregulation, there has been little action by provincial governments to deregulate entry and pricing. As a result, Canadians are paying higher fares and service quality is lower than in the more deregulated markets of the United Kingdom and the United States.     

Vertical Integration and Exclusive Behavior of Insurers and Hospitals

We examine vertical integration and exclusive behavior in health care markets in which insurers and hospitals bilaterally bargain over contracts. We employ a bargaining model of two hospitals and two health insurers competing on premiums. We show that asymmetric equilibria exist in which one insurer contracts one hospital whereas the other insurer contracts both hospitals, even if all players are equally efficient in their production. Asymmetric equilibria arise if hospitals are sufficiently differentiated. In these cases, total industry profits increase and consumer welfare decreases in comparison to the case in which both insurers have contracts with both hospitals. Vertical integration makes these equilibria possible for a wider range of parameters.     

Randal Heeb Innovation and Vertical Integration in Complementary Markets

This paper studies vertical integration by an essential-good monopolist into complementary markets. Unlike previous studies of complementary products, consumers are allowed to purchase some components of a complementary basket, but not others. Two different pricing strategies by the integrated firm may emerge. In mass-market equilibria, the price of the complement under integration is zero and it is given away with the essential good. Niche-market equilibria have more conventional pricing. This dichotomy is consistent with consumer software pricing. Integration enhances consumer and total surplus, unless it leads to exit by the higher-quality rival, in which case welfare is reduced. Exit is most likely when it is least damaging to consumer welfare. Integration reduces innovation by the rival firm. The effect on innovation by the integrated firm is ambiguous, but numerical computation of an extended model indicates that integration increases the innovation of the integrated firm and enhances welfare.     

Linkages between emerging and developed equity markets: Empirical evidence in the PMG framework

This paper empirically investigates the international equity market causal links between Central and South-Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and developed countries (Western Europe and the United States), on the other hand, over the monthly sample period spanning from October 2000 to September 2012. Unlike previous studies, we use the pooled mean group (PMG) approach of Pesaran et al. (1999), which is suitable to estimate dynamic heterogeneous panels to draw reliable conclusions. After cointegration is found between the stock markets of interest, the PMG estimates show evidence of each market's sensitivity to the fluctuations of the other markets over both the short- and long-run, supporting the feedback hypothesis. The impact of developed markets on emerging markets is more important than that of emerging markets on developed markets and the bidirectional impact is higher between emerging and Western European markets than between these emerging markets and the United States. These conclusions are robust to an alternative specification, which supports the view that the stock markets are closely interlinked. The findings are of great interest and have important implications for policy makers, investors, and practitioners.     

Informal Housing in the United States

Research on informal housing tends to focus overwhelmingly on less developed countries, downplaying or ignoring entirely the presence of informality in United States housing markets. In actuality, a longstanding and widespread tradition of informal housing exists in the United States but is typically disregarded by scholars. In this article we draw on three definitions of informality—as non‐compliant, non‐enforced, or deregulated economic activity—to characterize examples of informality in US housing markets, focusing in particular on five institutions that govern housing market activity in this country: property rights law, property transfer law, land‐use and zoning, subdivision regulations, and building codes. The cases presented here challenge the notion that informality is absent from US housing markets and highlight the unique nature of informal housing, US style—namely, that informal housing in the US is geographically uneven, largely hidden and typically interwoven within formal markets. We conclude with a discussion of how research on informal housing in the US can inform research in the global South.     

Verifiable wage offers and recontracting: effect on wage and consumption profiles

This paper analyzes the effect of recontracting and matching verifiable wage offers on the intertemporal structure of contract wage and consumption profile for a two-period economy. A contract firm provides specific training for a worker during the first period, which increases his productivity if he stays in the second period, but the worker may quit to accept an alternative wage offer after a successful search. Wage offers are private to the worker but can be presented to the contract firm for matching. This paper shows that when capital markets are imperfect and wage offers are verifiable, the contract firm recontracts and matches any wage offers the worker receives up to the second-period productivity. The ex ante contract wage profile will be flat. Inefficient quits will be eliminated and there will be complete ex ante consumption smoothing. It is significant to note that the result of rising wage profile derived in numerous contract models is fragile with respect to assumptions on mechanism of interfirm labor mobility.