国有银行海外上市:是开始而不是结局

2005年将以银行改革过关之年载入中国金融史册:中国建设银行步交通银行海外上市后尘在香港挂牌上市;中国工商银行股份有限公司正式挂牌成立;中国银行海外上市筹备工作也进入了关键阶段,计划在2006年上半年完成.周小川曾指出:股改上市是国有银行改革的里程碑.通过股份制改革,特别是转变为上市公司以后,国有商业银行外部制约问题和内部改革动力问题都将得到改善.解读银行业的这段改革新历程意义显著.     

给你投资伦敦的N个理由

相对宽松的监管环境,使伦敦成为理想的金融和商业中心 谈及伦敦,白英杰先生充满了自豪.伦敦是全球顶尖的国际金融和商业中心,它提供了成长的企业所需要的一切.作为欧洲的金融中心,伦敦被公认为中国进入拥有4.5亿消费者的欧盟市场的门户.     

Affordable retirement: light at the end of the tunnel

Compared to previous studies, the 2004 Replacement Ratio Study from Aon Consulting/Georgia State University shows an increase in the amount of income today's workers need at retirement to maintain their preretirement standard of living. After describing the study's replacement ratio findings, the authors estimate lump sums needed at retirement and required adjustments for both nonincreasing annuities and retiree medical expenses. They then describe steps innovative plan sponsors can take to encourage participants to understand and undertake their responsibility to acquire the substantial personal savings needed for a comfortable retirement.     

Work and life: the end of the zero-sum game

Most companies view work and personal life as competing priorities in a zero-sum game, in which a gain in one area means a loss in the other. From this traditional perspective, managers decide how their employees' work and personal lives should intersect and often view work-life programs as just so much social welfare. A new breed of managers, however, is trying a new tack, one in which managers and employees collaborate to achieve work and personal objectives to everyone's benefit. These managers are guided by three principles. The first is to clearly inform their employees about business priorities and to encourage them to be just as clear about personal priorities. The second is to recognize and support their employees as whole people, not only acknowledging but also celebrating their roles outside the office. The third is to continually experiment with the way work gets done, looking for approaches that enhance the organization's performance and allow employees to pursue personal goals. The managers who are acting on these principles have discovered that conflicts between work and personal priorities can actually be catalysts for identifying inefficiencies at the workplace. For example, one manager and his staff found a way to accommodate the increased workload at their 24-hour-a-day command center while granting the staff more concentrated time off. So far, these managers have usually been applying the principles without official sanction. But as the business impact of their approach becomes better appreciated, the authors predict, more and more companies will view these leaders as heralds of change.     

Crossing London: Overcoming the Obstacles to CrossRail

London's main transport modes are over-loaded. An important part of the solution is CrossRail, a new east-west underground railway. It was agreed and fully planned all of ten years ago; but the obstacles to its construction are severe and have become worse as time has passed. While the value of CrossRail is clear and generally recognized, a large number of direct interests have both the incentive and the power to object to it as a specific proposal, in an attempt to secure a better outcome for themselves. Many commercial, public and governing institutions will have to be persuaded to make a sacrifice in the interests of the project going ahead.     

Bid-ask Spreads, Trading Volume and Volatility: Intra-day Evidence from the London Stock Exchange

This paper examines intra-day variations in the bid-ask spread, volatility and volume for stocks traded on the London Stock Exchange. The data set used consists of quote and transactions data for a large sample of 835 stocks traded during the first quarter of 1991. The focus of the study is twofold; first, is to document a number of stylized facts regarding the intra-day behaviour of spread, trading volume, volatility etc. Second, the paper tests some predictions of two theoretical models of intra-day behaviour: the Admati and Pfleiderer and the Brock and Kleidon models. In addition, the paper also studies qualitatively the intra-day behaviour of several variables of interest including volume per transaction, transactions per fifteen-minute interval and spreads/trading volume for stocks of differing liquidity. The results suggest that the bid-ask spread is wide at the open, constant through the day and rises slightly at the close. Trading volume, in contrast is not highest at the open and the close. Volatility, based on the mid-point of the inside spread, shows a U-shaped pattern. Volume per transaction, in contrast, is fairly constant throughout the day. Further, the intra-day trading volume pattern differs for liquid and illiquid stocks. The results provide mixed support for current theoretical models of intra-day behaviour of spread, volume and volatility on the London Stock Exchange     

伦敦:浴火重生的世界金融中心

21世纪或许该是伦敦重现辉煌的世纪.2000年,英美学者在<伦敦纽约研究>系列报告中宣布,全球顶级金融中心只有伦敦和纽约.     

How it all began: the rise of listing requirements on the London, Berlin, Paris, and New York stock exchanges

The issue of accounting standards for foreign securities listed on a stock exchange arose gradually over the period 1825-1914 among the leading exchanges in the first global financial market—London, New York, Paris, and Berlin. Comparing their listing requirements on the eve of World War I, we find that the London and New York exchanges were most detailed, reflecting their common-law legal environments and their status as self-regulating organizations. The evolution of listing requirements in London and New York therefore influenced the development of accounting standards in those countries. By contrast, Paris and Berlin relied on validation of a security by political authorities. One result of these differences in legal and political environments was that American railroads issued the only securities to be listed on each of the four exchanges.     

The end of strategy : Selected bibliography

The purpose of this review is to mention some sources used in the preceding article, ‘The end of strategy’. Given the current weight of the strategy ‘literature’ and the small number of references given here, it will be clear that this is far from being a comprehensive bibliography, or even what some people would regard as a minimum reading list.     

Status building: Some reflections on the architectural history of Chartered Accountants' Hall, London, 1889–1893

This paper examines the architectural history of Chartered Accountants' Hall, London, from the point of view of its use by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to confirm and enhance its professional status in the early phase of its existence. Drawing on sociology of the professions literature, the study links the hall with the emergence of the professional headquarters of the main legal and medical bodies on which the Institute of Chartered Accountants based much of its behaviour. A loose model for such buildings is utilized as a framework within which relevant aspects of the detailed history of Chartered Accountants' Hall are elaborated.     

“圈”出国际金融之都

威斯敏斯特(英国国会大厦)弥漫着浓厚的历史气息,同样也是隐忧重重。自二战中丘吉尔组成战时联合政府以来,英国已有65年没出现过执政联盟,而保守党和自由民主党(下称自民党)这两个在政治光谱各居一端的政党联合,更让人感觉政治的谲诡。