日本金融业的"双重杠杆"现象剖析

一、令人关注的“双重杠杆”现象“双重杠杆”(Double-Gearing)也有人称之为双向杠杆,是指日本银行拥有大量的保险公司证券(通常以次级贷款和盈余票据形式持有),人寿保险公司也拥有大量的银行次级债券和股票,银行和保险公司互相持有彼此发行的证券的现象。在日本,保险公司是银行的大股东,持有每一家城市银行超过10%的股份,银行和保险公司互相交叉持股,依靠彼此信用筹集资金。截至2000年3月,保险公司提供给银行6.7万亿日元次级债券和7.7万亿日元股票,银行提供给保险公司2.3万亿日元盈余票据和次级债券。2000年,由于Chiyoda人寿保险公司、Ky…     

Cardinality-based equality of opportunities

We study possible rankings of opportunity profiles. An opportunity profile is a list of opportunity sets, one for each agent in the society. We compare profiles on the basis of the notion of “equality of opportunities”. Our main results show the necessary and sufficient conditions for this comparison to be made using exclusively the information provided by two cardinal measures: the number of common alternatives in all sets of a given profile and the difference between the number of alternatives in the individual sets. We also show that, under additional axioms, we can combine these criteria only in a weighted procedure or in some lexicographic refinements of a weighted procedure.      

DS-optimal designs in one way ANOVA

Characterization and construction of optimal designs using the familiar optimality criteria, for example A-, D- and E-optimality are well studied in the literature. However the study of the Distance Optimality (DS-) criterion introduced by Sinha (1970) has very recently drawn attention of researchers. In the present article, we consider the singularly estimable full rank problem of estimating the full set of elementary treatment contrasts using the DS optimality criterion in the set up of a one way ANOVA model. Using a limit argument it turns out that a CRD in which difference between any two allocation numbers is at the most unity is uniquely DS-optimal. Acknowledgement. We are thankful to Prof. B. K. Sinha for suggesting the problem to us and many helpful discussions with him. We are also thankful to the referees for drawing our attention to the reference of Bischoff (1995) and many helpful comments.     

Budget deficits and real interest rates: Updated empirical evidence on causality

Using error-correction model (ECM) estimation, the paper empirically examines the causality relationship between the federal government budget deficit and the ex ante real interest rate yield on high grade long term tax free municipal bonds in the U.S. To clarify this deficit or interest rate relationship, the budget deficit is measured by the primary budget deficit, which excludes net interest payments by the Treasury. In a model that includes federal personal income tax rates and net international capital flows, as well as money supply growth, the ECM estimates strongly suggest a bi-directional relationship between the primary budget deficit and the ex ante real interest rate yield. Budget deficits apparently do matter! William Simon's concerns were justified.The author is indebted to P. A. V. B. Swamy for ideas and helpful suggestions and Will Perry for data assembly and processing.