How Islamic are Islamic banks? A non-linear assessment of Islamic rate – conventional rate relations

In this paper, we perform a non-linear assessment of Islamic rate – conventional rate relations for the case of Malaysia. Using monthly data covering the period January 1999 to November 2016, we find strong evidence supporting non-linear reactions of the Islamic investment rates to conventional rates in the long run and/or short-run for all matched maturities. More precisely, the Islamic investment rates exhibit faster upward movement (slower downward movement) in responses to conventional deposit rate increases (decreases). The asymmetric pricing behaviour of Islamic banks however tends to weaken as maturity lengthens. Accordingly, we infer that Islamic banks do not rigidly peg their investment deposit rates to conventional deposit rates as some have claimed in questioning the Islamicity of Islamic banks.     

Impact of interest rate surprises on Islamic and conventional stocks and bonds

This paper studies the impact of interest rate news surprises on Islamic and conventional stock and bond indices, using a dataset which covers interest rate announcements and forecasts, as well as stock and bond indices in three Islamic and eight non-Islamic countris. We find that interest rate surprises tend to have a smaller impact on the returns and volatility of Islamic than conventional bonds because Islamic bonds are structured to avoid explicit interest rates. However, interest rate surprises have about the same or bigger impact on the returns and volatility of Islamic relative to conventional stocks, despite the low amounts of cash and debt holdings of firms comprising Islamic stock indices.     

Usury laws and private credit in Lima,Peru. Evidence from notarized records

I examine the impact of usury laws on the Peruvian credit market between 1825 and 1852. Using a new data set of nearly 2,000 loans from archival sources, I show that the repeal of colonial anti-usury laws in early 1833 had an important effect on the allocation of credit in Lima. It increased interest rates and promoted access to credit. Furthermore, lenders made loans with greater maturities after the repeal of usury laws.     

The expected real yield and inflation components of the nominal yield curve

The term structure of real yields and expected inflation are two unobserved components of the nominal yield curve. The primary objectives of this study are to decompose nominal yields into their expected real yield and inflation components and to examine their behaviour using state-space and regime-switching frameworks. The dynamic yield-curve models capture three well-known latent factors – level, slope, and curvature – that accurately aggregate the information for the nominal yields and the expected real and inflation components for all maturities. The nominal yield curve is found to increase slightly with a slope of about 120 basis points, while the real yield curve slopes upward by about 20 basis points, and the expected inflation curve is virtually flat at slightly above 2 per cent. The regime-switching estimations reveal that the nominal yield, real yield and expected inflation curves have shifted down significantly since 1999.     

The (de-)anchoring of inflation expectations: New evidence from the euro area

Well-anchored inflation expectations are a key factor for achieving economic stability. This paper provides new empirical results on the anchoring of long-term inflation expectations in the euro area. In line with earlier evidence, we find that euro area inflation expectations have been anchored until fall 2011. Since then, however, they respond significantly to macroeconomic news. Our results obtained from multiple endogenous break point tests suggest that euro area inflation expectations have remained de-anchored ever since.     

Economic slowdowns,hazard rates and foreign ownership

This paper evaluates the link between foreign ownership and firm exit during crises, using a longitudinal micro dataset over an 18-year period. We address two main questions: first, if foreign affiliates have different failure rates than domestic firms during economic downturns, and second if the foreignness effect differs between two different economic downturns. The results partially confirm the liability of foreignness argument, suggesting that when the crisis was more pronounced at home than abroad, the differences in hazard rates between foreign and domestic firms reduce. The footloose argument is also only partially confirmed. For policy makers, our results on survival dynamics during crises are not against policies stimulating inward investment. There is no need to fear that foreign firms destabilize more than usual the host economy during economic slowdowns by immediately closing down operations.     

基于资源视角的农业供给侧结构性改革的路径研究

[目的]粮食安全是世界各国政府普遍关注的问题,都将其列为重中之重.粮食主产区是我国粮食生产的核心地带和关键区域,为保障国家粮食安全、协调区域发展,必须从国家战略角度出发,实施粮食主产区利益补偿理念,充分体现社会公平与正义的价值取向和主旨,为粮食安全提供坚实的区域基础.[方法]运用实证分析方法,借助统计年鉴,通过粮食产量、人均粮食产量、粮食播种面积、人均粮食播种面积、人均地区总产值、地区财政收入、人均地区财政收入、城镇化率、居民人均可支配收入等数据分析,比较13个粮食主产区和7个粮食主销区在10年间粮食生产和经济社会发展的客观现实差距.[结果]粮食主产区在粮食产量、粮食播种面积等方面的生产规模优势和生产能力显著,对我国经济社会贡献巨大;粮食具有准公共产品的属性,粮食主产区需要支付高额的生产费用,承担运输成本与储存成本,无法通过市场获得补偿;粮食产销区之间囿于主体功能与发展责任的迥异而导致经济差距较大,主要体现在人均地区总产值、地区财政收入、人均地区财政收入、城镇化率、居民人均可支配收入等差别.[结论]据此提出,必须实施粮食主产区利益补偿,需要完善粮食主产区利益补偿的价值选择与国家政策导向:应在中央政府、区域政府层面完善相应的政策:一是国家层面制定粮食主产区区域政策;二是完善产粮大县奖励政策;三提高财政转移支付力度与精准度;四是建立产销区利益联动机制;五是加强农业基础设施和公共事业建设等.     

The effect of cell phones on international motor vehicle fatality rates: A panel-data analysis

This paper analyzes the effects of cell phone usage and economic freedom on motor vehicle death rates by estimating regression models on data for three years across 38 countries. The models incorporate a representative set of motor vehicle fatality determinants. Results indicate that cell phone use has a statistically significant nonlinear impact on highway death rates and that economic freedom does not appear to have an effect.     

Shanxi Merchants’ Multilevel Financial System in Ming and Qing Dynasties,China

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1368–1911), China saw rapid development in industrial and commercial sectors. Over this period, a group of merchants originating from the inland province of Shanxi gradually built a multilevel financial system and became leaders in China’s banking sector. The system of financial institutions they established (pawnshops, seal shops, money shops, loan banks, and draft banks) each had a unique business model, with specific target client group and carefully designed risk management. They were also interconnected to allow for flexible capital flows, contributing to the fast economic growth in this period. Nevertheless, the traditional system also had limitations, leading to its replacement by modern banks eventually.     

Political uncertainty,risk of Frexit and European sovereign spreads

Using data from a prediction market (crowd-based forecasts), we build a daily measure capturing the risk of Frexit related to the 2017 French presidential elections. We study how unexpected changes in this new measure of political uncertainty in France affect European sovereign spreads vis-à-vis Germany. We show that our uncertainty proxy drives not only the French sovereign spread but also the spreads of those EU countries deemed the most vulnerable to the risk of desegregation of the Euro Zone. These results suggest that specific political uncertainty affects short-term investor’s expectations and may outweigh other economic determinants of sovereign spreads shortly prior to high stake elections