Syndicated Loan Announcements and Borrower Value

Announcements of syndication loans increase borrowers' shareholder wealth if they are revolving credit agreements but not if they are term loans. Share price responses to revolving credit announcements are positive and significant, whereas the wealth effect for term loans is negative and significant. The results show that announcements from both the financial press and commercial information providers can affect borrower share price reaction. Overall, single syndication announcements appear to be more newsworthy than multiple announcements reported in the financial press, and we find evidence of information leakage, post‐announcement drift, or both.     

Noise Trading and the Management of Operational Risk; Firms,Traders and Irrationality in Financial Markets*

abstract Efficient market models cannot explain the high level of trading in financial markets in terms of asset portfolio adjustment. It is presumed that much of this excessive trading is irrational ‘noise’ trading. A corollary is that there must either be irrational traders in the market or rational traders with irrational aberrations. The paper reviews the various attempts to explain noise trading in the finance literature, concluding that the persistence of irrationality is not well explained. Data from a study of 118 traders in four large investment banks are presented to advance reasons why traders might seek to trade more frequently than financial models predict. The argument is advanced that trades do not simply occur in order to generate profit, but it does not follow that such trading is irrational. Trading may generate information, accelerate learning, create commitments and enhance social capital, all of which sustain traders' long term survival in the market. The paper treats noise trading as a form of operational risk facing firms operating in financial markets and discusses approaches to the management of such risk.     

The dynamics of moonlighting in Russia1

This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to analyse the dynamics of moonlighting by the working‐age population. We find that moonlighting is transitory and that a desire to switch jobs expressed in the past is positively related to moonlighting in the present and to actual job changes in the future. We also find that workers who moonlighted as self‐employed in the past represent 26.5 percent of the new self‐employed. These results suggest that moonlighting in Russia can be seen as an effective incubator for setting up new self‐employed businesses, thereby providing long‐term benefits for the economy.     

Improved estimation of portfolio value‐at‐risk under copula models with mixed marginals

Portfolio value‐at‐risk (PVAR) is widely used in practice, but recent criticisms have focused on risks arising from biased PVAR estimates due to model specification errors and other problems. The PVAR estimation method proposed in this article combines generalized Pareto distribution tails with the empirical density function to model the marginal distributions for each asset in the portfolio, and a copula model is used to form a joint distribution from the fitted marginals. The copula–mixed distribution (CMX) approach converges in probability to the true marginal return distribution but is based on weaker assumptions that may be appropriate for the returns data found in practice. CMX is used to estimate the joint distribution of log returns for the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) index and the associated futures contracts on SGX and TAIFEX. The PVAR estimates for various hedge portfolios are computed from the fitted CMX model, and backtesting diagnostics indicate that CMX outperforms the alternative PVAR estimators. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 26:997–1018, 2006     

路过天空——深圳航空平面广告创意手记

曾经读过泰戈尔的这句“天空没有翅膀的痕迹，而我已飞过”。无奈地承认，这曾是对天空最美丽的想象。不过生存要继续。2006，深航，我们要继续为它构筑在天空的远大版图。 航空业显然是不轻松的，高风险低回报，加之油价上涨、外航潜人、国内航空公司3＋X竞争局面的加剧…在高度发展的商业社会中，天空中也有狭路相逢之时。     

2005年国外大石油公司经营状况及发展动向

2005年,埃克森美孚、BP、壳牌、雪佛龙和道达尔的净利润总额达到1131亿美元,比上年上涨了29%;油气产量同比下降了3%,原油加工量和油品销售量也出现明显滑坡;受天然气储量增长的拉动,年末剩余可采油气储量为739亿桶油当量,与上年基本持平,油气储量接替率为107%,比上年增加了46个百分点,但石油储量接替率仅为62%;单位油气生产成本为4.92美元/桶,比2004年增加了20.4%.在新的经营环境下,五大石油公司对经营战略进行了调整.一是在加大投资力度的同时,保持审慎的投资原则,资本支出增幅小于国际原油价格上涨幅度.二是为利润的长期增长进行战略性投资,继续推行向上游倾斜的政策.三是进行资产优化组合,剥离成本高、缺乏发展潜力的非战略核心资产,提高资本回报率.四是选择符合发展战略、资产匹配性好的中型石油公司进行并购,以实现近期产量增长目标.五是为了减少再投资的风险,增加派息和股份回购,将高油价所带来的超额盈利回报股东.六是发展替代能源和可再生能源.     

试论我国湿地生态效益补偿制度框架构建

湿地是物种多样、资源丰富的生态系统,同时兼具经济、生态和社会三大价值。湿地生态效益补偿制度的建立,是稳定湿地周边经济,保障湿地有效保护和可持续发展的重要制度。在分析阐述我国湿地生态效益补偿制度建立的目的、原则的基础上,进一步确立了我国湿地生态效益补偿制度涉及的相关利益者和主客体,探讨了建立湿地生态效益补偿制度的补偿标准、补偿手段,初步构建了我国湿地生态效益补偿制度的补偿框架。     

浅谈假日经济对中国经济的长期拉动效应

假日经济已成为国民经济的重要组成部分,并在国民经济中发挥着日益重要的作用。但在假日经济的发展过程中,也出现了一系列的负面效应,影响了假日经济的持续发展。文章就如何发挥假日经济的长期拉动效应,提出了相应的对策。     

人口老龄化背景下农村养老的困境及其路径选择——基于安徽省砀山县的实证分析

在中国农村人口老龄化程度快速发展背景下，中国农村养老面临的形势不容乐观。文章基于对安徽省砀山县农村养老状况的调查，在论述当前农村养老的基本现状以及存在的主要问题的基础上，提出了农村养老保障体系建设应遵循既要使农村社会的养老资源得到充分整合又要体现社会主义新农村建设的要求的基本思路。同时，积极推进农村养老保险制度创新、尽快编织农村最低生活保障“安全网”以及不断完善新型农村合作医疗制度是当前农村养老保障工作的重心。     

论法官政治素质

法律与政治的密不可分、司法机构的政治属性及司法职业自身的政治因素决定了政治素质是法官素质的重要内容。法官政治素质包括保持司法独立、以人民利益为重、保持司法克制、区分政治问题和法律问题以及约束自身政治活动等内容。培养与提高法官政治素质，应当从法官选任重视政治素质标准、继续教育注重政治素质培养和完善职业保障机制等方面入手。