Linking forestry, sustainability and aesthetics

In forest planning, little research has been devoted towards examining how visual-impact assessment can improve the public acceptance of forest activities and augment forest sustainability. The objective of the present work is to review the methods of aesthetic assessment of forest landscapes, which will help the implementation of visual-impact assessment in sustainable forestry. From the numerous techniques of landscape evaluation that have been devised in recent years, the expert approach techniques have dominated in environmental management practices and the perception-based approach in research. The non-market economic valuation techniques are essentially trade-off methods and not aesthetic assessments by themselves. Revealed preference methods, such as hedonic-price, use actual market choices of individuals to get their preferences towards non-market attributes, and stated preference methods, such as contingent valuation method, rely on surveys to get directly the individual's willingness to pay for the non-market attributes. Psychophysical preference modelling is a popular quantitative holistic technique of landscape evaluation and if used in combination with indirect aesthetic evaluation methods might create new standards and protocols for techniques of objectively estimating public perception of aesthetic quality and thus to enhance social sustainability in forest space.     

社会保障政策目标X-低效率分析：一个新的研究视角

X-低效率分析是社会保障政策目标分析的一个新的研究视角。＂漏桶理论＂天然地诠释了社会保障X-低效率存在的原因,社会保障制度作为社会的稳定器和安全网,其政策效率目标在运作过程中会产生一定漏出量,引发X-低效率现象。政府失灵、制度设计管理缺陷、道德风险与负面激励共同构成了社会保障政策目标X-低效率的客观诱因。     

证券投资基金中的委托代理问题

从分析证券投资基金的委托代理关系入手 ,讨论了由于基金存在两级契约安排所引起的逆选择和道德风险问题 ,提出只有设计一系列制度安排以减少信息成本和激励成本 ,投资基金才能凭借其特有的优势 ,发挥出集合投资、分散风险、专家理财、企业监控的功能。具体探讨了第一、第二级契约安排中的委托代理问题。     

股票期权激励陷阱研究

理论上讲我国实施股票期权可以有效解决经理人长期激励不足和经营者道德风险问题,也有利于上市公司降低委托成本,吸引并稳定人才.但由于我国股票市场不完善及股东与管理者的信息不对称等问题的存在,股票期权激励机制在我国的运用效果欠佳,从而产生了激励陷阱.文章通过对股权激励陷阱表现形式及形成原因的分析,提出了规避此类陷阱的具体措施.     

Evergreening in banking

In the dynamic model of banking, a bank's option to hide its loan losses by rolling over non-performing loans is shown to worsen moral hazard. Contrary to the classic theory, moral hazard may arise even when a bank cannot seek a correlated risk for its loans. The loans seem to be performing and the bank makes a profit although it is de facto insolvent. When the bank's balance sheet includes hidden non-performing loans, the bank may optimally shrink lending or gamble for resurrection by growing aggressively. To eliminate this type of moral hazard, which is broadly consistent with evidence from emerging economies, a few regulatory implications are suggested.     

On the Coexistence of Banks and Markets*

We examine the coexistence of banks and financial markets by studying a credit market where the qualities of investment projects are not observable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs are not contractible. Standard banks can alleviate moral‐hazard problems, while financial markets operated by investment banks can alleviate adverse‐selection problems. In competition, standard banks are forced to increase repayments, since financial markets can attract the highest‐quality borrowers. This, in turn, increases the share of shirkers and may make lending unprofitable for standard banks. The coexistence of financial markets and standard banks is socially inefficient. The same inefficiency may occur with the entrance of sophisticated banks, operating with a combination of rating and ongoing monitoring technologies.     

Characteristic properties of multivariate survival functions in terms of residual life distributions

This paper discusses the relationships among some characteristic properties of the multivariate survival function based on the residual life distribution, and provides the conditions for their equivalence. In the meanwhile, the corrected version of Ma (1996, Theorem 1 (ii) and (iii)) is given.     

Firm-Specific Characteristics and the Timing of Foreign Direct Investment Projects

This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm’s investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision. We find that total factor productivity is a significant determinant of a firm’s initial and subsequent investments. Parent-firm size does not have a significant influence on the initial decision to invest. Large firms simply have more investments than smaller firms. Other firm-specific characteristics, such as the R&D intensity, export share and keiretsu membership, also play a role in the investment process. JEL no. F23, L20     

Controlling for Burnout in Estimating Mortgage Prepayment Models

Burnout is a consequence of unobservable predictive variables. This paper describes a methodology for estimating mortgage prepayment models which corrects for burnout. The paper generalizes the approach of Deng, Quigley, and Van Order (Econometrica, 68, 275–307, 1998) and Stanton (Rev. Finan. Stud.8, 677–708, 1995) in modeling the impact of unobservable variables as a probability distribution. The estimator is applied to a sample of loan histories and the results compared to a conventional logit analysis of the data. Predictions and simulations from both models are compared to illustrate the properties of the new estimator.     

INTENSITY-BASED VALUATION OF RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGES: AN ANALYTICALLY TRACTABLE MODEL

This paper presents an analytically tractable valuation model for residential mortgages. The random mortgage prepayment time is assumed to have an intensity process of the form h _t = h ₀( t ) +γ ( k − r _t )⁺ , where h ₀( t ) is a deterministic function of time, r _t is the short rate, and γ and k are scalar parameters. The first term models exogenous prepayment independent of interest rates (e.g., a multiple of the PSA prepayment function). The second term models refinancing due to declining interest rates and is proportional to the positive part of the distance between a constant threshold level and the current short rate. When the short rate follows a CIR diffusion, we are able to solve the model analytically and find explicit expressions for the present value of the mortgage contract, its principal-only and interest-only parts, as well as their deltas. Mortgage rates at origination are found by solving a non-linear equation. Our solution method is based on explicitly constructing an eigenfunction expansion of the pricing semigroup, a Feynman-Kac semigroup of the CIR diffusion killed at an additive functional that is a linear combination of the integral of the CIR process and an area below a constant threshold and above the process sample path (the so-called area functional). A sensitivity analysis of the term structure of mortgage rates and calibration of the model to market data are presented.