Read my lips: The role of information transmission in multilateral reform design

Context-specific knowledge is crucial to crafting multilateral reform programs. Nonetheless local knowledge often consists of unverifiable information, thus the quality of countries' reports depends on the conflict of interests faced by the recipient and the multilateral. We compare the performance of a “delegation-scheme” against a “centralization-scheme.” We find that recipients' discretion in the choice of reforms (delegation) should only be increased when the countries' local knowledge is strictly more important than the multilateral's information. Conversely, a reduction in the conflict of interests may lead the multilateral in to allowing the recipient less freedom in designing reforms (centralization). Our empirical results support these theoretical predictions.     

Trade booms, trade busts, and trade costs

What has driven trade booms and trade busts in the past and present? We employ a micro-founded measure of trade frictions consistent with leading trade theories to gauge the importance of bilateral trade costs in determining international trade flows. We construct a new balanced sample of bilateral trade flows for 130 country pairs across the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania for the period from 1870 to 2000 and demonstrate an overriding role for declining trade costs in the pre-World War I trade boom. In contrast, for the post-World War II trade boom we identify changes in output as the dominant force. Finally, the entirety of the interwar trade bust is explained by increases in trade costs.     

物流包装中存在的问题及措施

要实现物流的绿色化,必须实现包装的绿色化——绿色包装。我国商品过度包装不利于可持续发展和节约型社会的建设,高投入、高消耗、低质量、低效益,导致了资源浪费和生态环境恶化。我国应顺应国际环保发展趋势,倡导绿色包装,制定包装及商品包装的管理办法,采取包装模数化、大型化和集装化以及绿色材料技术等措施实现包装的合理化与现代化。并将物流与包装有机地融合在一起,大力发展绿色物流体系下的绿色包装。     

国际大宗商品价格与我国通胀预期的联动性研究

通过CRB指数与我国通胀预期指标CPI、PPI之间的相关性分析,同时结合全球各经济体的经济恢复情况考量.证实CRB指数是一个测量通货膨胀的先行指标,不仅与我国CPI、PPI呈高度相关性,而且能提前反映出CPI、PPI以及M1、M2的走势.     

Efficient division of profits from complementary innovations

Many products—including microprocessors, telecommunications devices, computer software, and on-line auction services—make use of multiple technologies, each of which is essential to make or sell the product. The owner of one technology benefits from the existence of complementary technologies. We show that, despite this externality, the structure of payoffs that support efficient R&D investment by duopolists racing to discover a single innovation generalizes to the structure that supports efficient investment for complementary innovations. The paper also examines how alternative intellectual property regimes and legal institutions affect R&D investment in complementary technologies. The results have policy implications for the organization of R&D, the assessment of damages for patent infringement, and allocations of value in patent pools.     

International variations in expected equity premia: Role of financial architecture and governance

Estimates of ex-ante equity premia are important in planning investments in pension funds, life insurance pools, and for other long-term financial obligations or goals. However, while global cross-border investment positions and flows have been rising, there is little research on non-US ex-ante equity premia or on their determinants in a global setting. This paper uses data on a recent 8-year period from 33 countries and models simultaneously our estimate of the ex-ante equity premium as a dependent variable and our measure of financial architecture as an instrumental variable. We document that ex-ante equity premia are larger in countries that have a more bank-oriented financial architecture, are wealthier, and have better governance. These results are robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques. Given the importance of equity premia and financial architecture, these results should be of much interest to scholars, managers, regulators, and policy makers.     

The role of securitization in mortgage renegotiation

We study the effects of securitization on renegotiation of distressed residential mortgages over the current financial crisis. Unlike prior studies, we employ unique data that directly observe lender renegotiation actions and cover more than 60% of the U.S. mortgage market. Exploiting within-servicer variation in these data, we find that bank-held loans are 26–36% more likely to be renegotiated than comparable securitized mortgages (4.2–5.7% in absolute terms). Also, modifications of bank-held loans are more efficient: conditional on a modification, bank-held loans have 9% lower post-modification default rates (3.5% in absolute terms). Our findings support the view that frictions introduced by securitization create a significant challenge to effective renegotiation of residential loans. We also provide evidence supporting the affordability focus of recent policy actions, such as the Home Affordability Modification Program.     

Liquidity in Frictional Asset Markets

On November 14–15, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland hosted a conference on “Liquidity in frictional asset markets.” In this paper, we review the literature on asset markets with trading frictions in both finance and monetary theory using a simple search‐theoretic model, and we discuss the papers presented at the conference in the context of this literature. We will show the diversity of topics covered in this literature, for example, the dynamics of housing and credit markets, the functioning of payment systems, optimal monetary policy and the cost of inflation, the role of banks, the effect of informational frictions on asset trading.     

开放经济条件下我国游资规模的测算研究

自2005年汇率改革以来,在人民币预期升值驱动下,国际游资大规模流入中国,对我国货币政策的独立性和实施效果产生了较大的冲击和影响。结合Auto-Regressive模型、PLS回归和GM(1,1)模型对2005~2009年的我国国际游资规模进行测算,结果表明,我国的国际游资主要是通过贸易顺差流入我国的,FDI中隐藏的国际游资相对要少很多。测算至2009年底,我国的国际游资规模已经达到了12623.31亿美元。     

Determinants of spatial knowledge spillovers in Italian provinces

Statistical evidence suggests that the relevance of knowledge spillovers has increased over time. In this paper we focus on regional knowledge spillovers and adopt a new econometric transformation that allows inference on potential inter-regional knowledge spillovers, accounting for spatial interdependencies.Determinants of inter-regional knowledge spillovers are explained with a sample of 103 Italian provinces. We find that a region’s absorptive capacity, measured by local R&D expenditure and social capital, implies a reduction of outward knowledge spillovers.Identification is based on the use of Two Stages Least Squares and Fixed Effects estimates.