Beyond EVA

A former partner of Stern Stewart begins by noting that the recent acquisition of EVA Dimensions by the well‐known proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) may be signaling a resurgence of EVA as a widely followed corporate performance measure. In announcing the acquisition, ISS said that it's considering incorporating the measure into its recommendations and pay‐for‐performance model. While applauding this decision, the author also reflects on some of the shortcomings of EVA that ultimately prevented broader adoption of the measure after it was developed and popularized in the early 1990s. Chief among these obstacles to broader use is the measure's complexity, arising mainly from the array of adjustments to GAAP accounting. But even more important is EVA's potential for encouraging “short‐termism”—a potential the author attributes to EVA's front‐loading of the costs of owning assets, which causes EVA to be negative when assets are “new” and can discourage managers from investing in the business. These shortcomings led the author and his colleagues to design an improved economic profit‐based performance measure when founding Fortuna Advisors in 2009. The measure, which is called “residual cash earnings,” or RCE, is like EVA in charging managers for the use of capital; but unlike EVA, it adds back depreciation and so the capital charge is “flat” (since now based on gross, or undepreciated, assets). And according to the author's latest research, RCE does a better job than EVA of relating to changes in TSR in all of the 20 (non‐financial) industries studied during the period 1999 through 2018. The article closes by providing two other testaments to RCE's potential uses: (1) a demonstration that RCE does a far better job than EVA of explaining Amazon's remarkable share price appreciation over the last ten years; and (2) a brief case study of Varian Medical Systems that illustrates the benefits of designing and implementing a customized version of RCE as the centerpiece for business management. Perhaps the most visible change at Varian, after 18 months of using a measure the company calls “VVA” (for Varian Value Added), has been a sharp increase in the company's longer‐run investment (not to mention its share price) while holding management accountable for earning an adequate return on investors’ capital.     

超越眩目空洞的"计量"

近年来,数学方法的引入日益受到金融理论研究者的重视,不少报刊都热衷于发表计量分析的论文。这些论文广泛涉及中国银行业规模经济及市场效率分析等多个领域,开拓了理论研究的视野。但是,不少文章中也存在一些倾向性的问题,颇值得关注。     

Economics as energy framework: Complexity,turbulence, financial crises,and protectionism

This paper presents a framework for thinking about economic growth, trade, and capital flows viewed as transformations of current and vintage solar energy, stored in the form of natural resources, human capital, physical capital and technology described by the laws of thermodynamics. Recent developments in nonequilibrium thermodynamics (NET) show how efficient global capital markets and high-speed communications networks accelerate energy flow and growth but also create turbulence, financial crisis, protectionism and conflict. The paper discusses the role that NET can play in helping us understand stock market bubbles and financial crises.     

Beyond Performance Measurement

This is the text of a plenary address given to the AFAANZ annual conference on 1 July 2007 on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.     

Beyond Single-Factor Affine Term Structure Models

This article proposes a new approach to testing for the hypothesisof a single priced risk factor driving the term structure ofinterest rates. The method does not rely on any parametric specificationof the state variable dynamics or the market price of risk.It simply exploits the constraint imposed by the no-arbitragecondition on instantaneous expected bond returns. In order toachieve our goal, we develop a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and applyit to data on Treasury bills and bonds for both the United Statesand Spain. We find that the single risk factor hypothesis cannotbe rejected for either dataset.     

走出模型依赖困境

编者按:正如切尔诺贝利核电站泄漏事故提醒世人核电站存在风险一样,1998年美国长期资本管理公司因巨额亏损被接管事件提醒人们风险管理模型(以下简称模型)也存在风险,这次的次贷危机则进一步提醒人们注意这一点.     

不以涨跌论债市

盘点2006年债市,首先要回答的问题是,2006年中国债市涨跌如何?这个问题看似简单,但若分别考察指数涨跌和收益率高低变化,却又很容易使人迷惑。如果用指数衡量,债市涨了；而如果用收益率测度,则债市跌了——二者似乎在同时讲述着不同的故事。实际上,2006年的债市不宜单纯以涨跌考量,在经过了“两起两落”之后,债市全年呈宽幅震荡格局,波动性比较大——这也是指数和收益率指标之所以反向变动的真正含义所在。     

超越房市的救市之争

美国救市实质是在挽救金融危机,而中国只是单纯的提出挽救房地产市场。中国的房地产市场是存在泡沫的,房地产市场持续健康发展,必须挤压出累积的泡沫。因此,人为中断调整只会埋下更大的隐患。我国的房地产市场目前成交量低迷,这正是市场步入自然调整状态的信号。房地产价格的调整可以促使房地产市场回归理性,促进产业间的均衡发展和有利于自主创新。当前,我们应认清房地产市场问题的根本原因,更多地关注市场运行规则和监管机制,而不是纠缠救市之争。     

Beyond nationalism: the universality of nonviolence

The greatest misconception about nation-building is that violence is always the ultimate form of defeating injustice and fighting a dictatorship. But during the last century, Mahatma Gandhi and many others have proven that nonviolence can be a powerful force which is capable of going beyond nationalism. Gandhi's profound analysis of the notion of ‘civilization’ places many new and important questions on the agenda of moral and practical philosophy today. In the march beyond nationalism, our world can move along with Gandhi's idea of civilization as nonviolence to get clear cut results in solving the problems related to poverty, war and violence.     

Beyond the boundaries of AsiaPacific area studies

The peculiarly American study of the ‘non-Western’ world—going under the rubric of interdisciplinary ‘area studies’—is in crisis. Its origins date back to the postwar and Cold War period and may be best understood as a political and policy-driven scholarly endeavor that flourished in the 1960s, 1970s and well into the 1980s. There have been many critiques from both within and outside the field. This article discusses the impacts of major globalizing trends on the field as well as new directions for the future. It focuses on the ‘Moving Cultures’ project of the School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Hawai'i¹ that was part of a larger Ford Foundation's initiative to revitalize area studies. This ongoing project utilizes computer-based and other interactive technologies to link students and classrooms across the Pacific divide as part of a pedagogy intending to decolonize area studies. The promises and perils of technology as a beacon for the future of area studies is critically assessed.     

Taking Real Options Beyond the Black Box

Finance theorists have long argued that DCF undervalues investment opportunities with significant flexibility to respond to future events and that real options valuation methods provide a solution to that problem. But for most corporate managers, real options analysis continues to be a "black box" when applied to real investment decisions.
This paper begins by considering why these approaches have not yet made it to the mainstream of practical application. It then shows how a traditional DCF approach can undervalue a project that provides management with operating flexibility and illustrates a case study that demonstrates to senior management how a real options valuation method with a few clear value drivers can build upon and be made consistent with the traditional DCF framework.
Critical to this process is ensuring consistency with the company's planning assumptions such as future price forecasts and discount rates. The article shows how to separate the static ("optionless") DCF value from the additional real options value that is shown to be a direct consequence of the assumptions about price dynamics.     

虚拟货币及其扩展:初步思考

随着信息加密和网络计算机技术日趋成熟,科技正在推动全球经济的转型变革。虚拟货币的产生在此过程中又显得至关重要。虚拟货币方案在许多情况下便于对等网络交互绕过传统的中央结算所。虚拟货币及其关联技术(特别是基于区块链的分布式账本)正在迅速发展,其未来前景难以预测。虚拟货币带来了许多潜在益处,包括更快速、高效的支付和转账等,并将最终促进普惠金融。一些虚拟货币方案背后的分布式账本技术提供的潜在益处将远超虚拟货币本身。但是,虚拟货币的出现也引发了许多潜在风险,如成为洗钱、恐怖融资、偷税漏税和欺诈等犯罪的工具。虚拟货币虽然目前的规模仍非常有限,对现阶段货币政策实施产生的风险亦甚微,但随着新技术的广泛应用,其对金融稳定产生的影响会日益显现。有关虚拟货币的有效监管对策还处于起步阶段。虚拟货币的在国家层面跨越了不同机构的职责,并在全球范围内操作,其监管难度很大。并且,许多虚拟货币在传统金融系统之外运作,缺乏透明度,其操作过程更难以被监管。各国监管机构已开始着手应对这些挑战且方式各异。需要注意的是,国家主管部门需认真权衡监管方式,既要适当处置风险又不能扼杀创新。为了在国家层面推进发展进程和促进政策的完善,国际层面也应进行更多努力。随着经验的不断积累,可考虑提出国际标准和最优方法,为不同领域的最优监管对策提供指导,从而促进跨辖区的协调。也可在此类标准基础上,为一些领域设立跨国合作和协调的框架。     

券商沉疴,已入膏肓?

中国股票市场持续低迷的走势,让人越来越怀疑能不能有走出困境的那一天。大范围的亏损自不待说,问题券商一个接一个的引爆,更把这个行业推向了助溃的边缘。券商改革要从自身做起:但券商所面临的问题仅靠自身改革就能解决的了么?