MONETARY TRANSMISSION MECHANISM IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE: SURVEYING THE SURVEYABLE

Abstract.  This paper surveys recent advances in empirical studies of the monetary transmission mechanism, with special attention to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our results indicate that the strength of the exchange rate pass-through substantially declined over time mainly due to a fall in inflation rates and to some extent due to the so-called composition effect. The asset price channel is weak and is likely to remain weak because of shallow stock and private bond markets and because of low stock and bond holdings of domestic households. House prices may become an exception with booming mortgage lending and with high owner occupancy ratios. While the credit channel could be a powerful channel of monetary transmission – as new funds raised on capital markets are close to zero in CEE – it is actually not, as both commercial banks and non-financial corporations can escape domestic monetary conditions by borrowing from their foreign mother companies. The moderately good news, however, is that those banks and firms are influenced by monetary policy in the euro area because their parent institutions are themselves subjected to the credit channel in the euro area.     

Expensive martingales

We characterize strictly arbitrage-free markets of European options where only a discrete set of options is traded. We then construct martingales which reprice all given options and which are ‘most expensive’ among all martingales with this property. We also present algorithms to adjust real-life market data and to construct expensive martingales while taking into account additional ‘weak’ information: estimated prices of more exotic products such as, for example, forward started options.     

“德隆系”失败原因研究综述

在经济转型时期的中国,许多企业在成长的过程中,由于宏观层面上受到经济周期波动的影响,或者由于微观层面上自身不能适应经济发展对产业结构升级的要求,或者由于违规经营等原因而出现了财务危机,德隆系是其中最典型的案例。德隆系的成功曾经是学界津津乐道的奇迹,德隆系后来的失败又激起了学者的许多反思,许多学者对德隆系的成败进行了剖析。本文对德隆系成功与失败的原因研究进行了综述,并指出这些研究具有一定的合理性,具有一定的理论价值,但忽视了德隆系成败理论框架建立的基础——中国经济转型。     

Fundamentals, the exchange rate and prospects for the current and future EU enlargements: evidence from Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey

We analyze the link between macroeconomic fundamentals and exchange rate dynamics in two new and two potential EU member states: Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and Turkey. Given the different institutional settings of the exchange rate market in the countries of interest, we follow two different modelling strategies. For Romania and Turkey, we evaluate possible exchange rate misalignments based on a monetary model of exchange rate determination. In the case of Bulgaria and Croatia, with currency board and narrow-band peg arrangements against the euro, we discuss possible exit strategies and quantitatively assess the effects of the peg arrangements by means of simulation.

税收立法中的宪政理念——以《税收征收管理法》第88条为例

现代税收国家公民纳税义务日益普及,对纳税人权利的保护也成为宪政建设和依法行政的重要问题。本文分析了税收立法所体现的制约国家权力与保障公民权利的宪政理论基础,提出完善我国税收立法的具体思路。     

Conceptual niche management of grassroots innovation for sustainability: The case of body disposal practices in the UK

The grassroots has recently been identified as an alternative site for the development of innovations that may contribute to shifts towards more sustainable systems of consumption and production. While the characteristics of these innovations have been elaborated, it remains unclear how these alternative ideas and practices can be purposively supported to populate incumbent systems. This is especially so in light of the difficulty the grassroots face in connecting forcefully with the mainstream.This article will address this issue by outlining an adaptation of conceptual niche management - an approach that focuses on the embedding of guiding principles used to fulfill basic societal needs - that is sensitive to grassroots innovation. The framework will be applied to the current UK body disposal system to illustrate how such transformative sustainability ideas may be capitalised on.     

How do interorganizational and interpersonal networks affect a firm's strategic adaptive capability in a transition economy?

This paper examines the effects of a firm's interorganizational network characteristics and a CEO's interpersonal network ties on a firm's strategic adaptive capability in a transition economy. Using a unique survey dataset of 250 Chinese firms, the paper focuses on the compositional diversity of a firm's interorganizational network and the structural holes in a CEO's interpersonal network. The results show that an interorganizational network that is diverse in composition and an interpersonal network that is rich in structural holes have significantly positive effects on a firm's strategic adaptive capability in China's transition economy. However, a negative interaction effect occurs between interorganizational network diversity and interpersonal network structural holes. The results suggest that managers simultaneously consider both the individual and joint effects of interorganizational and interpersonal network characteristics when developing firm strategies.     

Venture capital in China: Past,present, and future

This article reviews the literature on venture capital in China and examines where China’s venture capital industry has been and where it is likely to go in the future. Since the 1980s, venture capital in China has grown steadily alongside the robust national economy. The future is likely to offer even greater opportunities, as entrepreneurs are encouraged and property rights improve. However, there will also be a period of transition as the market continues to mature and as new legal structures and commercial arrangements emerge. Venture capital in China has many interesting differences from that in Western countries. The venture capital industry is shaped by the institutional context and China is no exception to this. This article also examines some specific differences between the system in China and that of the United States. Future prospects for venture capital are also appraised as China continues its transition to a market economy.

Agriculture in transition economies: from common heritage to divergence

The 23 former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) started the transition in 1989–1990 from a common institutional and organizational heritage, represented by the Soviet agricultural model. Despite the common heritage in agriculture, the reform policies in CEE and CIS diverged from the start, as significant differences emerged between the two groups of countries in legal attitudes to private land ownership, transferability of land, the extent of agricultural privatization and individualization, and restructuring of farms. This divergence in the implementation of agricultural reform has led to divergence in standard development measures: the CEE countries are outperforming the CIS countries by growth in GDP and agricultural product since 1992; the productivity of agricultural labor in CEE is generally increasing, and in CIS it is decreasing. While the CIS countries at best can be characterized as reluctant reformers, the CEE countries have achieved significantly higher levels of economic and institutional reform. Better performance in CEE is associated with greater readiness of the governments in these countries to implement a comprehensive package of economic and social reform policies, including more radical land reform and deeper individualization and restructuring of agriculture.     

流转税制与所得税制的比较研究--中国税收CGE模型的应用

本文建立了一个静态税收可计算一般均衡（CGE）模型,模拟中国的经济运行情况。在此基础上,从流转税制和所得税制两种不同类型的税制模型入手,分析了包括增值税、消费税和营业税在内的中国绝大部分工商税种,并模拟几种征税方案进行比较研究,得到“我国应尽快改现行流转税制更有利于经济发展”重要结论。同时,本文也实现了CGE模型定量分析在中国财税政策的应用。