Bayesian assessment of dimensionality in reduced rank regression

We consider Bayesian inference about the dimensionality in the multivariate reduced rank regression framework, which encompasses several models such as MANOVA, factor analysis and cointegration models for multiple time series. The fractional Bayes approach is used to derive a closed form approximation to the posterior distribution of the dimensionality and some asymptotic properties of the approximation are proved. Finite sample properties are studied by simulation and the method is applied to growth curve data and cointegrated multivariate time series.     

中国城市化与经济增长的动态计量分析

为探讨我国城市化与经济增长之间的相互作用和相互影响,文章依据1978~2004年的时序数据,利用协整检验、格兰杰因果检验、误差修正模型、脉冲响应及方差分解等方法,对城市化水平与经济增长的关系进行动态计量分析。结果发现,经济增长是城市化水平提高的格兰杰原因,经济增长对城市化产生较大的正向冲击效应,而城市化对经济增长的作用强度不大;城市化水平受人均GDP影响的效应逐步增强,受自身影响的效应不断减弱,而人均GDP受自身波动影响的效应不断上升,受城市化水平影响的强度逐步下降。对我国城市化与经济增长关系的深入认识,有利于各级政府在推动城市化和促进经济增长的过程中采取合理对策,避免走入误区。     

城市公交行业顾客满意度测评及其提升对策——以合肥市为例

城市公交作为城市经济运转的动脉,已经成为国内城市发展规划中的重中之重。然而,目前在城市公交行业占主体地位的国有公交企业却亟待提高营运效益,增强企业活力,以摆脱经营上的困境。立足于安徽省省会城市合肥市的公交行业,通过实证研究与规范研究相结合的方式,针对城市公交行业的顾客满意度测评及其提升对策问题进行了较为深入的探讨。     

Measuring abnormal daily trading volume for samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities using parametric and nonparametric test statistics

We extend prior research on the empirical properties of daily trading volume and methods to detect abnormal trading volume in two ways. We compare the performance of a nonparametric test statistic with the parametric test statistic used in prior research and we study samples of NASDAQ securities as well as samples of NYSE/ASE securities. Prior research has focused exclusively on NYSE securities. We find the nonparametric test statistic is more powerful in detecting abnormal trading volume than the parametric test statistic in both samples of NYSE/ASE and NASDAQ securities. We also document that abnormal trading volume will be detected more often in samples of NYSE/ASE securities compared to NASDAQ securities.     

Diversification Benefits of Japanese Real Estate Over the Last Four Decades

This paper studies the benefits of diversifying into real estate and other assets that typify the wealth held by Japanese investors. We examine movements in mean variance frontiers by employing spanning tests to assess the statistical significance of frontier shifts. We also investigate the impact of shifts in mean variance frontiers before and after the precipitous decline in Japanese real estate and stock market values that began in 1990. Spanning tests show that real estate, short and long-term bonds, and Japanese equity provide significant diversification benefits. We find that mean variance frontiers shift after 1990. Statistically significant shifts are also economically important as measured by Sharpe ratio changes. Although significant, the portfolio weights on Japanese real estate are relatively small compared to their composition found in surveys of Japanese household wealth.     

多约束事件下施工进度计划控制技术

通过对影响工程进度的约束事件的分析，在横道图和关键线路网络图（CPM）的基础上，力图建立一种施工现场实用直观的进度计划控制图技术。有利于工期的控制，用其作为进度记录和报告、评价延误和变更影响的载体也非常方便，可以作为调整项目完工时间的模型。     

The Effects of Attributes on the Repeat Sales Pattern of Residential Property in Hong Kong

There has been copious research work on the development of house price models and the construction of house price indices. However, results in some studies revealed that the accuracy of such indices could be subject to selection bias when using only information from a sample of sold properties to estimate value movements for the entire housing stock. In particular, estimated house price appreciation is usually systematically higher among properties that change hands more frequently. It therefore suggests that the determination of important factors affecting the transaction frequency or intensity of a housing unit should be a more fundamental research question. This paper examines the possible factors that determine the popularity of residential unit by means of a repeated sales pattern. The Poisson regression model and event history analysis techniques are employed to assess the effect of attributes on transaction frequency and intensity. The event history analyses technique can take account of transaction-specific as well as time-dependent covariates, and therefore is recommended for analyzing repeated sales data in a real estate market. All transaction records during the period 1993–2000 from the Land Registry of one of the most popular residential estates in Hong Kong were used to illustrate the method. Unlike a response to favorable transaction price, good quality units do not necessarily inherently display a high transaction frequency. Rather, units of average quality are more likely to be transactionally active.     

Using Market Expectations to Test for Speculative Bubbles in the Crude Oil Market

The wide fluctuations of oil prices from 2003 to 2008 have attracted the interest of academics and policymakers. A popular view is that these fluctuations were caused by speculative bubbles due to the increased financialization of oil futures markets. This hypothesis, however, is difficult to examine since the fundamental price of oil is unobservable and, therefore, econometric evidence in favor of bubbles may actually be due to misspecified market fundamentals. In this paper, we extend two recently proposed methodologies for bubble detection that alleviate this problem by using market expectations of future prices. Both methodologies provide no evidence of speculative bubbles.     

Classical meets modern in the IDEA protocol for structured expert judgement

Expert judgement is pervasive in all forms of risk analysis, yet the development of tools to deal with such judgements in a repeatable and transparent fashion is relatively recent. This work outlines new findings related to an approach to expert elicitation termed the IDEA protocol. IDEA combines psychologically robust interactions among experts with mathematical aggregation of individual estimates. In particular, this research explores whether communication among experts adversely effects the reliability of group estimates. Using data from estimates of the outcomes of geopolitical events, we find that loss of independence is relatively modest and it is compensated by improvements in group accuracy.     

Measuring the liquidity part of volume

Based on the concept that the presence of liquidity frictions can increase the daily traded volume, we develop an extended version of the mixture of distribution hypothesis model (MDH) along the lines of Tauchen and Pitts (1983) to measure the liquidity portion of volume. Our approach relies on a structural definition of liquidity frictions arising from the theoretical framework of Grossman and Miller (1988), which explains how liquidity shocks affect the way in which information is incorporated into daily trading characteristics. In addition, we propose an econometric setup exploiting the volatility–volume relationship to filter the liquidity portion of volume and infer the presence of liquidity frictions using daily data. Finally, based on FTSE 100 stocks, we show that the extended MDH model proposed here outperforms that of Andersen (1996) and that the liquidity frictions are priced in the cross-section of stock returns.