The Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth Households in South Korea

This study establishes the stylized facts on household balance sheets in South Korea and empirically investigates their macroeconomic implications based on the concept of ‘wealthy hand-to-mouth (HtM)’ households that hold little liquid wealth with owning large amount of illiquid assets. Using a household-level panel data for the period of 2000–2014, we find that (1) there are neither deleveraging of household debts nor a sharp decline in house price even during the financial crisis, (2) run-up in household debt in 2000s is led by high-income group, (3) regardless of net worth level, wealth is highly concentrated on illiquid assets such as housing and real estate, (4) the share of wealthy HtM households is very high compared to the cases of other advanced countries. We estimate the marginal propensity to consume out of a transitory shock and find that the consumption response of HtM households is larger compared to the non-credit-constrained group, posing a threat to macroeconomic stability. Using discrete choice models with fixed effects, we also find that a household that acquire more real estate assets is more likely to become wealthy HtM when its income is relatively lower or its indebtedness is relatively higher. We discuss the characteristics of HtM households and the role of macroprudential policy.     

Ambient Influences on Municipal Net Assets: Evidence from Panel Data

Governments’ net assets balances are viewed as a measure of fiscal health and have been linked to municipal credit ratings. This study explores the extent to which ambient socioeconomic factors are captured in aggregated restricted and unrestricted net assets balances (termed “liquid net assets”) to understand why such balances are relevant to credit analysts and others. We model liquid net assets balances using observable nonaccounting factors (e.g., unemployment rates) to learn whether they reflect such influences. We use panel data for fiscal years 2007–2011 so our results comprehend effects of recent economic fluctuations. We find that liquid net assets balances impound a rich array of influences, bearing a positive association with the mayor‐council form of government, community wealth, the incidence of property crimes, and increases in governments’ business‐type net assets. Liquid net assets balances bear a negative association with liabilities for postemployment benefits, unemployment, and violent crime. The results indicate that net assets balances capture noteworthy debt burden, administrative, and socioeconomic influences and, as such, have meaning beyond their basic accounting interpretation.     

数字金融、家庭财富与共同富裕

文章使用2017年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,实证研究了数字金融对家庭财富积累、财富不平等的影响。研究发现:(1)在考虑了内生性问题的影响后,数字金融能够显著促进家庭财富积累,经过使用多种方法进行稳健性检验,该结论依然成立。(2)创业和配置风险金融资产是数字金融影响家庭财富的重要渠道。(3)财富规模越小的家庭,使用数字金融产生的创富作用越大,并且老年人、低教育程度、低收入水平、农业户口群体家庭和农村居民家庭使用数字金融能够产生更大的创富作用。总的来说,财富是富裕的题中之义,数字金融能够在提升家庭财富总体水平的基础上缓解财富不平等,从而有利于实现共同富裕。文章的研究发现为推动共同富裕提供了政策参考依据。     

Reweighting South African National Household Survey Data to Create a Consistent Series Over Time: A Cross‐Entropy Estimation Approach

In the absence of established longitudinal panel surveys in South Africa, national cross‐sectional household survey data are frequently used to analyse change. When these data are stacked side by side, however, inconsistencies both in time trends and between household‐ and person‐level data are found. This study uses a new set of weights calibrated to the Actuarial Society of South Africa 2003 model projected totals using a cross‐entropy estimation approach. These weights are favoured because they produce consistent demographic and geographic trends. The calculated weights are similar to the initial sample weights (and hence retain the survey design benefits) but match to a series of age‐sex‐race and province marginal totals that are consistent over time. The weights are publicly available for the 14‐year period between 1994 and 2007.     

Why Do Property‐Liability Insurers Destroy Liquidity? Evidence from South Africa

This paper examines liquidity creation behaviour in the property‐liability insurance market in South Africa. Using annual data on 76 insurers from 2007 to 2014, the paper employs the three‐stage approach to estimate liquidity creation. The results suggest that property‐liability insurers are characterised by liquidity destruction by transforming liquid assets in cash and investable securities into illiquid reserves liabilities. The findings also indicate that the R1.32 billion in liquid assets were transformed into illiquid reserves liabilities in 2014, an increase from the R700 million liquidity de‐created in 2007. The increases were mainly driven by large insurers which accounted for about 70% liquidity de‐created. The results of panel regression analysis provide evidence in support of the “risk‐absorption” hypothesis which argues that high levels of capital increases liquidity creation. In addition, size, leverage and reinsurance were also identified as the firm‐level factors that explain liquidity creation. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Macroprudential policy and household wealth inequality: Evidence from China

The influence of LTV ceiling on household wealth inequality is not constant. This paper finds that when the return on housing investment is higher than the return on liquid assets, the LTV ceiling generally has a negative impact on household wealth inequality; otherwise, it is more likely to be positive. Increasing the LTV ceiling can significantly alleviate household wealth inequality in China. Housing price and the number of houses purchased are important channels, and the house purchase preference (savings rate and house purchase intention) plays a key role in regulating wealth distribution through the LTV ceiling.     

The national wealth of Sweden, 1810–2014

This study presents a new database, the Swedish National Wealth Database, which contains annual data on private, public, and national wealth and sectoral saving rates in Sweden over the past two centuries. The paper reviews previous investigations of national wealth, compares their estimates with the ones presented here and discusses method approaches and measurement problems. The main results from data series are presented for assets and liabilities and their subcomponents, for the private and public domestic and foreign sectors. By complementing the past literature with its traditional focus on economic flow variables to understand long-run economic developments, this new database offers potentially new perspectives on a number of important issues in Sweden's economic history.     

The dynamics of household dissolution and change in socio-economic position: A survival model in a rural South Africa

This paper investigates household dissolution and changes in asset wealth (socio-economic position) in a rural South African community containing settled refugees. Survival analysis applied to a longitudinal dataset indicated that the covariates increasing the risk of forced household dissolution were a reduction in socio-economic position (asset wealth), adult deaths and the permanent outmigration of more than 40% of the household. Conversely, the risk of dissolution was reduced by bigger households, state grants and older household heads. Significant spatial clusters of former refugee villages also showed a higher risk of dissolution after 20?years of permanent residence. A discussion of the dynamics of dissolution showed how an outflow/inflow of household assets (socio-economic position) was precipitated by each of the selected covariates. The paper shows how an understanding of the dynamics of forced household dissolution, combined with the use of geo-spatial mapping, can inform inter-disciplinary policy in a rural community.     

UK External Imbalances and the Sterling: Are they on a Sustainable Path?

An updated version of Krugman’s 1993 MMF framework is used to consider the implications of buoyant domestic demand for the real exchange rate and debt dynamics. The updating includes a Taylor rule for monetary policy and explicit treatment of external assets and liabilities. In response to an exogenous rise in the aggregate demand, short-run appreciation of the real exchange rate is followed by a prolonged decline as external debt accumulates and net wealth deteriorates. Whether in equilibrium the real exchange rate is stronger or weaker depends crucially on a comparison of real interest rates and the growth rate. If the domestic growth rate is higher than global real interest rates, the currency may strengthen in the long run despite the deterioration of net external assets. To see whether the strength of sterling is sustainable, the analysis is briefly calibrated to UK data over the last decade. Blanchard et al. (The US current account and the dollar. CEPR DP no 4888, 2005) suggest that international liabilities to be treated as imperfect substitutes: so we check to see how this would affect our results.

The anatomy of large valuation episodes

We examine cases in which there is a large shift in a country’s net foreign asset position due to the re-valuation of its foreign assets and/or foreign liabilities. We highlight the differences in large valuation shocks between countries characterized by large gross stocks of foreign assets and foreign liabilities and countries exhibiting large net external positions. Finally, we analyze macroeconomic dynamics in the neighborhood of large valuation episodes.     

Wealth Privilege and the Racial Wealth Gap: A Case Study in Economic Stratification

The emerging subfield of stratification economics is a response to the orthodoxy’s resistance to recognizing the role of racial and ethnic disparities and its penchant for adopting cultural explanations for intergroup differences. With this view, the literature on the racial wealth gap and its particular embrace of the Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) offers a clear example of this critique at work. Not only is the LCH incapable of explaining why the racial wealth gap is so much larger than the income gap, but its limitations restrict the range of explanations explored. As an alternative, this paper introduces the Wealth Privilege (WP) model. Unlike the LCH, the WP model can incorporate the effects of contemporary racism as well as the systemic sources that are a legacy of several centuries of racialized policies. Using evidence from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), this article offers empirical corroboration as well. Since the SCF queries households on their attitudes toward saving and investment, this article investigates the extent that cultural differences explain the wealth gap. To limit the problem of skewness, which is inherent in wealth studies, the analysis uses an inverse hyperbolic-sine transformation of household net worth. The OLS regression results show scant support for key features of the LCH while demonstrating the importance of asset ownership and family support, both crucial facets of the WP model. Two different decomposition methods, Blinder - Oaxaca and DiNardo - Fortin - Lemieux, corroborate these conclusions. As wealth is easily transferable across generations, the evidence supports the contention that household wealth serves as a source of economic stratification as it functions to preserve and even widen the racial wealth gap.     

中国家庭股市资产价值变动对居民消费的影响——来自CHFS的微观证据

近年来针对股市资产价值变动与消费关系的研究多采用宏观数据,难以揭示股市资产价值变动对居民消费影响的细节。为克服以上缺陷,文章利用中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）数据分析股市资产价值变动对中国居民消费的影响。实证结果表明：（1）股市资产价值变动对居民消费的影响总体较弱,其中市值变动的财富效应主要体现在改善性消费上,而对饮食等日常必须消费和奢侈品消费影响较小,这可能与我国居民的收入结构和投资方式有关;（2）随着年龄增长,居民的收入分布和资产配置倾向发生改变,股市资产价值变动对不同年龄居民消费的影响呈现先减小后增大的U型分布。研究结论揭示了股市资产价值变动对居民消费影响的分布特征,为今后股市改革方向提供了建议。     

我国商业银行使用利率衍生品的动因研究——基于资产负债期限错配视角的经验证据

国外研究表明商业银行资产负债期限错配对利率衍生品使用存在正向影响。然而，以我国16家上市商业银行作为实证样本，分析了2006—2012年共计179组半年度数据后却发现，无论是整体资产负债的期限错配还是不同期限结构的期限错配均对利率衍生品使用产生了负效应，进一步的研究还显示出这种负效应无论在规模上还是显著性水平上均与期限错配的期限结构存在正相关性，本文尝试从我国特有的金融体系出发对实证结果进行解释，最后也提出了相关的政策建议。     

Fixed Capital in Russia

The article analyzes the indicators of Russia’s national wealth, i.e., fixed capital, as well as its structure, accumulation, and efficiency. This opportunity arose due to the significant improvement in the information base of Rosstat, the development and publication of financial account tables, the balance of assets and liabilities, the revaluation account, other changes in assets and input–output tables for 2011–2015.     

河南省中小板上市公司的盈利能力实证研究

净资产收益率、主营业务利润率、总资产利润率、资产负债率、主营业务收入增长率、净利润增长率、总资产周转率等因素对中小板上市公司的盈利能力都有不同程度的影响。通过建立多因素灰关联模型,分析影响因素与河南省中小板上市公司盈利能力的相关程度。研究发现河南省中小板上市公司的盈利能力与主营业务利润率和净资产收益率等指标有显著的相关性。     

Resources,household decision making and organisation of labour in food production among small-scale farmers in southern Zambia

This article examines the production context of small-scale farm households in the Choma District in southern Zambia. Factors associated with differential access to production assets among the households are analysed. In addition to this, patterns of household decision making and the social organisation of labour in agricultural production are documented. The study findings show that farm size, a proxy for wealth or social status, accounted for significant differences in the level of ownership and access to production assets. The study also highlights the importance of labour and livestock in the production strategies of small-scale farmers. The data from this study on decision making and the social organisation of labour confirm the importance of gender roles in agricultural production.     

银行中间业务收费应注意的问题及建议

中间业务是指不构成商业银行表内资产、表内负债形成银行非利息收入的业务。长期以来,我国商业银行中间业务收费管理政策不完善,收费市场秩序混乱,收费管理政出多门,收费标准偏低,严重影响了中间业务的发展,造成中间业务种类单一,经营范围较窄;金融创新受到制约,业务收益较差;服务手段落后,科技化程度较低。要促进我国商业银行中间业务的发展,必须按照市场经济的要求,建立一个公平、合理的收费机制。     

参与成本、异质性与股市投资——基于城镇家庭数据的实证分析

本文利用2002年的CHIP数据分析了我国城镇家庭的股市投资行为。考虑到参与成本和异质性,本文使用Heckit模型来考察家庭股票数量与份额的决定。结果表明,家庭股市参与的概率与家庭的总财富水平、户主的收入以及教育水平之间存在显著的正相关关系,与户主的年龄呈倒U型关系。收入、财富水平和年龄对于家庭购买股票的数额也有类似影响;但教育水平的影响有所减弱。而对于股票在家庭总资产或金融资产中的份额,年龄和教育的影响在大部分模型中不显著;财富水平的系数显著为负。     

Notes on 'a code for fiscal stability'

This note comments on two central issues for fiscal policy designin the UK, highlighted in the recent 'Code for Fiscal Stability'proposed by the new Labour government. The first concerns themerits of the so-called 'golden rule of public sector investment'- the proposition that, over the cycle, government borrowingshould not exceed government (net) capital formation. The secondconcerns the case for attempting to construct a more comprehensivebalance sheet of public sector assets and liabilities, includingtangible public sector assets and certain contingent claims.The two main conclusions are that the golden rule is withoutmerit but that, subject to some important caveats, the constructionof a more comprehensive government balance sheet is a worthwhileenterprise.