Adjusting the measurement of US manufacturing productivity for air pollution emissions control

We estimate a distance function and derive producer shadow prices for SO₂ and PM-10 emissions. The shadow prices are used to adjust a traditional measure of total factor productivity growth in order to account for the reallocation of inputs from production of the marketed output to pollution abatement activities. Adjusted total factor productivity growth rates are calculated for the two-digit SIC manufacturing industries in the United States for 1970–1996. The results indicate that including the “output” of pollution abatement activities has a measurable effect on the productivity of many industries in the manufacturing sector.     

Threshold effect of scale and skill in active mutual fund management

In this paper, we apply threshold estimation techniques to study the size-performance relationship in the US mutual fund industry. Existing studies have found diseconomies of scale, and we add our contribution to this by considering possible non-linear decreasing returns to scale caused by fund age and manager tenure. We find significant threshold effects of both fund age and manager tenure at approximately three to four years in the size-performance relationship. Compared with younger funds, older funds have more severe decreasing returns to scale as the industry size increases.     

What factors drive individual misperceptions of the returns to schooling in Tanzania? Some lessons for education policy

Evidence on educational returns and the factors that determine the demand for schooling in developing countries is extremely scarce. Building on previous studies that show individuals underestimating the returns to schooling, we use two surveys from Tanzania to estimate both the actual and perceived schooling returns and subsequently examine what factors drive individual misperceptions regarding actual returns. Using OLS and instrumental variable methods, we find that each additional year of schooling in Tanzania increases earnings, on average, by 9 to 11%. We find that on average individuals underestimate returns to schooling by 74 to 79% and three factors are associated with these misperceptions: income, asset, poverty and educational attainment. Shedding light on what factors relate to individual beliefs about educational returns can inform policy on how to structure effective interventions in order to correct individual misperceptions.     

通货膨胀如何影响股票回报——基于债务融资的视角

大部分研究发现实际通货膨胀率与股票回报呈现出负相关关系,但对于两者为何呈现这样的关系并未提供相关的实证证据。我们认为其主要原因在于缺乏通货膨胀到股票回报之间中间渠道的认识与分析。因此,本文依据我国通货膨胀指标,基于通货膨胀影响企业债务融资行为的研究视角,实证检验发现,当通货膨胀率上升时,企业会增加债务融资,而债务融资比例的上升进一步提升了企业风险,并且通货膨胀与股票回报的负相关关系主要通过债务融资渠道进行传导;上述现象在国有企业以及融资约束较弱的企业表现得更为明显。本文的研究为通货膨胀与股票回报之间的负相关关系提供了微观层面的解释视角。     

中国城镇居民消费和财富能预测股指收益吗

中国城镇居民消费和财富能否预测股票市场收益率?借鉴Lettau和Ludvigson消费财富比的研究思路,考察中国城镇居民消费和财富对股票资产定价的影响。研究表明：第一,消费财富比反映了典型代理人根据预期收益率变化而不断调整的消费行为,测度了消费对长期均衡的短期偏离程度;第二,消费财富比本质是高频经济变量,创新采用递归HP滤波方法实现消费财富比预测模型,对单次HP滤波处理后的周期序列继续进行多次分解以提取目标频率范围内的有效高频信息,提高 HP滤波数据处理的准确性和灵活性;第三,2010年1月至2016年6月,消费财富比对沪深股指收益率具有显著的解释和预测能力。这说明中国城镇居民消费、资产和收入之间存在的长期趋势决定了股票价值中枢,消费财富比通过间接测度城镇居民的预期收益率,能显著预测股指收益率对价值中枢的短期偏离程度。     

Smoothing in appraisal-based returns

This article presents a conceptual analysis of smoothing in the second moments of appraisal-based returns series in commercial real estate. The intent of the article is to lay the groundwork necessary for the more scientific use of appraisal-based returns time series for the purpose of inferring the true second moments. Formal smoothing models are presented together with their theoretical implications for smoothing in various second moments of interest to investment analysts. Empirical estimators for inferring true moments from appraisal-based data are described. Limited empirical findings from previous literature are also briefly discussed in the light of the theoretical findings of this study. The overall conclusion is that appraisal-based returns can be very useful in studying the risk characteristics of commercial real estate assets, provided that this type of data is corrected for smoothing as discussed in the article.     

Impact of Earnings,Dividends and Cash Flows on Stock Returns: Case of Taiwan's Stock Market

The study uses Taiwan's stock market, a newly developed market with different characteristics from that of the U.S., as an experimental case to examine the influences of the market's characteristics on the relationship between stock returns and fundamental accounting information, such as earnings, dividends and cash flows. The testing period is from 1990 to 1994, right after the promulgation of Taiwan's accounting standard for statement of cash flows in 1989.Similar to the findings of U.S. studies, the study shows that earnings data is key information for investors. Unlike the U.S. results, however, both operating income and non-operating income are positively related to stock returns. The usefulness of non-operating income to explain stock returns is due mainly to its recurrent characteristic in Taiwan. The market views non-operating income, mostly from disposal of real-estate and short-term equity investments, as a complementary factor to operating income. It is a possible common phenomenon in a booming economy. Unlike from the results of U.S. studies, Taiwan's stock returns are strongly associated with stock dividends. Cash dividends, however, are relatively less important information to the market. The fast booming economy as well as Taiwan's free tax rate on capital gains are the explanations for the different findings. The results also support McNicholes and Dravid's (1990) and etc. results that stock dividends may act as a signal for favorable future earnings. Examining the association between stock returns and cash flow information, the results indicate that stock returns are positively associated with cash flows from both operating and financing activities. The phenomenon implies that the market appreciates not only the cash inflows from operating activities, but also cash inflows from new issues of bonds or stocks for further expansion. It is consistent to Taiwan's booming economy. The finding also supports Ross (1977) and Leland and Pyles' (1977) signaling hypothesis.The study concludes that the relationships between stock returns and fundamental variables are subject to the market's characteristics. The case of the Taiwan stock market shows that usefulness of accounting information depends upon the different roles of the information in the tested market. The results of the study also indicate that directly applying the U.S. experiences without any adjustment may cause incorrect conclusions for empirical studies.     

我国股票市场收益、交易量、波动性动态关系的实证分析

本文对我国股票市场上证指数和深圳成指的收益、交易量、波动性之间的动态关系进行了实证研究,研究结果表明:收益和绝对收益与交易量之间均存在正相关关系;收益与交易量以及绝对收益与交易量之间存在双向Granger因果关系(线性或非线性);深圳成指收益的波动方差对收益具有正向作用,而上证指数收益的波动方差对收益没有直接的影响;上证指数和深圳成指的成交量对股指收益的波动方差不具有解释作用.     

我国股票市场收益率的持久性分析

随着混沌理论的发展和应用,分形市场理论逐步引起金融领域研究者的重视.R/S方法是研究分行结构特征的有效工具,许多学者应用R/S方法分析股票市场收益率的变化规律,得出了有价值的结论.采用修正R/S方法以及关联维数方法分析上证综合指数的市场有效性,结果显示,上证综合指数没有呈现明显的持久性,不能拒绝有效市场假说.     

Efficiency and Global Scale Characteristics on the “No Free Lunch” Assumption Only

In a production technology, the type of returns to scale (RTS) associated with an efficient decision making unit (DMU) is indicative of the direction of marginal rescaling that the DMU should undertake in order to improve its productivity. In this paper a concept of global returns to scale (GRS) is developed as an indicator of the direction in which the most productive scale size (MPSS) of an efficient DMU is achieved. The GRS classes are useful in assisting strategic decisions like those involving mergers of units or splitting into smaller firms. The two characterisations, RTS and GRS, are the same in a convex technology but generally different in a non-convex one. It is shown that, in a non-convex technology, the well-known method of testing RTS proposed by Färe et al. is in fact testing for GRS and not RTS. Further, while there are three types of RTS: constant, decreasing and increasing (CRS, DRS and IRS, respectively), the classification according to GRS includes the fourth type of sub-constant GRS, which describes a DMU able to achieve its MPSS by both reducing and increasing the scale of operations. The notion of GRS is applicable to a wide range of technologies, including the free disposal hull (FDH) and all polyhedral technologies used in data envelopment analysis (DEA).