A MODEL OF SELF‐FULFILLING FINANCIAL CRISES*

This paper combines the structural weakness and the self‐fulfilling panic view to explain the cause of the East Asian crises. In this model economy, the diversification strategies induce conglomerate firms to overinvest. They accumulate losses due to their unprofitable sectors and then compensate by obtaining bank loans. Domestic banks, which borrow from foreign banks, lend money as long as the total amount of accumulated loans remains within the firms’ collateral value. The model shows that if the debt to collateral value ratio belongs to a certain range a self‐fulfilling crisis can occur due to the self‐fulfilling expectations of foreign investors.     

HAS INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY INCREASED IN ASIA? EVIDENCE FROM THE POST‐1997 FINANCIAL CRISIS PERIOD

This paper examines whether international capital mobility in Asia has increased after the 1997 Asian financial crisis by estimating the Feldstein‐Horioka (FH) coefficients using panel cointegration and dynamic OLS regressions. In the benchmark estimation, we find that the FH coefficients of ten Asian economies decrease significantly from 0.65 during the pre‐crisis period to 0.32 during the post‐crisis period. Furthermore, the coefficient for the post‐crisis period is less statistically significant than that for the pre‐crisis period. The extended model estimations with additional control variables controlling for the business cycle, different foreign exchange rate systems, and capital control also show the results which are consistent with the benchmark estimation results. Rolling regressions show a consistently declining trend of the FH coefficients in Asia during our sample period. These results provide consistent evidence, according to the FH proposition, of increasing international capital mobility in Asia during the post‐1997 Asian financial crisis period. (JEL F36, F37, F21)     

The Implementation of Innovative Management Accounting Systems

This paper reports on innovations in management accounting systems (MAS) in three Australian manufacturing enterprises. The study is based on the premise that systems characteristics of the MAS innovations develop in response to triggers for adoption, and the outcomes achieved from the innovative systems will depend on the effective implementation of the costing systems. The MAS innovations implemented include activity-based costing, activity-based management, benchmarking, integrated budgetary system, key performance indicators and balanced scorecards. Five factors influencing the successful implementation of innovative MAS are proposed: commitment to the initiatives; a successful pilot application; incremental development; appropriate training; and integration with other processes and systems.     

Older Self‐Employed Workers and Planning for the Future

This study examined retirement expectations of the older self‐employed utilizing two theories: the normative anticipation of retirement and cumulative advantage theory. Two‐thirds of the older self‐employed had no retirement plans. Multinomial logistic regression showed that those with no retirement plans were more likely to be unmarried, in poorer physical health, with few resources, and more obligations, but they expected to live a long time. Job skills programs and managerial training could improve the financial well‐being of the older self‐employed and enable them to plan for retirement.     

A Fuzzy Cognitive Map-Based Bi-Directional Inference Mechanism: An Application to Stock Investment Analysis

The objective of this paper is to apply fuzzy cognitive map (FCM)-related techniques to (1) extract causal knowledge from a specific problem-domain, (2) construct a hierarchical knowledge base, and (3) perform a bi-directional inference. The causal knowledge base built by FCM can be described as a matrix form, guaranteeing mathematically compact operation compared with a production (if–then) knowledge base. Based on the causal knowledge base, we can break down a given decision problem into a multi-leveled one. Then bi-directional (downward or upward) inference can be applied to the multi-leveled problem to find a more robust solution. We applied our method to a stock investment analysis problem which is typical of highly unstructured problems in OR/MS fields. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wealth Distribution, Inflation Tax, and Societal Benefits of Illiquid Bonds

Illiquid nominal government bonds are shown to have two opposing effects on welfare. First, the relatively poor choose to top-up money balances for future consumption by purchasing nominal bonds at a discount. The wealth distribution becomes more centered with a smaller consumption deviation from the first best. Second, the higher inflation tax on monetary wealth to finance interest payments makes money less valuable, so that the quantity of output produced in exchange for money decreases. The trade-off between the welfare-enhancing effect on wealth distribution and the distortionary effect on output implies the socially optimal discount rate and liquidity.     

Time-Series Variation in Dividend Pricing

Ex-dividend day returns vary over time. The ex-day returns of high-yield stocks are persistently positive for some time periods and negative for others; in contrast, ex-day returns of low-yield stocks are always positive and less variable. We are unable to explain the variation with changes in the tax code, but we do find a strong effect for the introduction of negotiated commissions. We find evidence that corporate dividend capturing is affecting ex-day returns and confirm the findings of Gordon and Bradford (1980) that the price of dividends is countercyclical.     

A STABLE NASH MECHANISM FOR QUASI-ADDITIVE PUBLIC-GOOD ENVIRONMENTS*

In this paper we present a simple game form implementing Lindahl allocations as Nash equilibrium outcomes, which has nice stability properties. we show that if the preferences of eaach consumer are representable by a utility function of the form a(y)x_i+b_i(y), where x_i(y), where x_i is the amount of private good and y, the amount of public good, then the Nash equilibrium of our geme is locally stable under the gradient adjustment process. This restriction on the preferences has been known in hte literature as the necessary and sufficient condition for the Pareto optimal amount of pukic goods to be independent of the private goods distribution. This type of preference includes quasi-linear preferences as a special case. but unlike quasi-linearity, this allows a non zero income effect of demand for public goods as well as private goods, which is often supported by empirical evidence. Our result shows how an equilbirium can be achieved over time by a decentralized strategy adjustement process for a fairly general class of environments, even in the absence of a dominant-strategy equilibrium.     

中韩两国自贸区战略对比及双边自贸区谈判展望

作为东亚重要的经济体,中韩两国近年来都走在积极推进对外自贸区建设,并取得了较大进展。尽管两国对外贸易依存度都处于较高的水平,但由于经济规模、贸易规模的差异,两国的自贸区战略也存在很大的差异。通过分析中韩两国的自贸区战略,可以发现中韩之间构建自贸区将是下一步双方战略的交汇点。尽管自贸区的达成会造成双方国内行业利益的分配不均,但双方政府可以通过在自贸区谈判中采取必要的例外或过渡期安排来完成双边的自贸区构建。