The joint effects of financial development and the business environment on firm growth: Evidence from Vietnam

This work examines the complementary effects of local financial development and the business environment on the growth of Vietnamese firms. For the period from 2009 to 2013, we combine firm-level data covering more than 40,000 firms from the Vietnam Enterprise Survey with province-level data from the Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Indicators. Our estimation strategy builds upon a novel copula-based estimator that accounts for potential endogeneity biases without requiring external instruments. Our results show that financial development and a favourable business environment generally promote firm growth, but some components of the business environment, such as low entry costs, access to land and business service support, foster firm growth more strongly than financial development. Most importantly, financial development and the business environment interact positively in their effects on firm growth. The impact of local financial development on firm growth is higher in provinces with a competitive business environment. Conversely, improvements in provincial competitiveness have a greater impact on firm growth in provinces with a more developed financial sector. The results clearly show that policies to promote local financial development need to be coordinated with measures to improve the broader business environment.     

Risk dependence and cointegration between pharmaceutical stock markets: The case of China and the USA

This paper analyses risk-integration and the degree of dependence between the Values-at-Risk (VaRs) estimates for the two major pharmaceutical stock markets in the world: USA and China. To do this, we study the dependence and fractional cointegration properties among risks. Using daily returns for an eleven-year period, we estimated the VaRs obtained for pharmaceutical market portfolios in China (Shanghai) and the USA (NYSE) using the market model and considering both long and short trading positions. We conclude that the Shanghai pharmaceutical market is riskier than NYSE, although is predictable and losses in both markets exhibit tail dependence between VaR estimates. Particularly, there is lower tail VaR dependence for long position and upper tail dependence for short positions, both being small and fairly constant. On the other hand, we have not found fractional cointegration between risks, suggesting that China’s pharmaceutical sector is not integrated into the global pharmaceutical market.     

Robust Hierarchical Bayes Small Area Estimation for the Nested Error Linear Regression Model

Standard model‐based small area estimates perform poorly in presence of outliers. Sinha & Rao ( 2009 ) developed robust frequentist predictors of small area means. In this article, we present a robust Bayesian method to handle outliers in unit‐level data by extending the nested error regression model. We consider a finite mixture of normal distributions for the unit‐level error to model outliers and produce noninformative Bayes predictors of small area means. Our modelling approach generalises that of Datta & Ghosh ( 1991 ) under the normality assumption. Application of our method to a data set which is suspected to contain an outlier confirms this suspicion, correctly identifies the suspected outlier and produces robust predictors and posterior standard deviations of the small area means. Evaluation of several procedures including the M‐quantile method of Chambers & Tzavidis ( 2006 ) via simulations shows that our proposed method is as good as other procedures in terms of bias, variability and coverage probability of confidence and credible intervals when there are no outliers. In the presence of outliers, while our method and Sinha–Rao method perform similarly, they improve over the other methods. This superior performance of our procedure shows its dual (Bayes and frequentist) dominance, which should make it attractive to all practitioners, Bayesians and frequentists, of small area estimation.     

改进型SMA-13沥青混合料在广东某高速公路的应用实践

本文以SMA沥青混合料在广东沿海高温潮湿地区应用实例依据,阐述了SMA沥青混合料目标配合比的设计要点和误差改进措施以及生产配合比控制的注意事项,验证了MPE添加剂使用过程的基本方法、工艺流程及MPE改进型SMA-13混合料的优异性能,并提出了一些卓有成效的改进方法措施,供商榷。     

Measuring large comovements in financial markets

A general, copula-based framework for measuring the dependence among financial time series is presented. Particular emphasis is placed on multivariate conditional Spearman's rho (MCS), a new measure of multivariate conditional dependence that describes the association between large or extreme negative returns—so-called tail dependence. We demonstrate that MCS has a number of advantages over conventional measures of tail dependence, both in theory and in practical applications. In the analysis of univariate financial series, data are filtered to remove temporal dependence as a matter of routine. We show that standard filtering procedures may strongly influence the conclusions drawn concerning tail dependence. We give empirical applications to two large data sets of high-frequency asset returns. Our results have immediate implications for portfolio risk management, derivative pricing and portfolio selection. In this context we address portfolio tail diversification and tail hedging. Amongst other aspects, it is shown that the proposed modeling framework improves the estimation of portfolio risk measures such as the value at risk.     

探讨沥青路面的冬季低温施工

本文通过对近年来沥青混凝土路面冬季低温施工出现的问题,从材料质量、混合料组成及冬季施工等方面,进行分析。并提出解决办法。     

中美证券市场信息扩散速度比较研究

本文利用信息传播速度模型讨论证券市场信息的有效性。发现在上海证券交易市场上信息传播速度对上证指数条件波动率的影响具有随时间变化逐渐扩大的趋势,而在纽约证券交易市场上信息传播速度对道琼斯指数条件波动率的影响相对稳定。表明上海证券市场消化新信息的效率明显低于纽约证券市场。实证结果较好地刻画了中美证券市场信息流动的基本特征。     

Consumer Segments Based on Attitudes Toward Luxury: Empirical Evidence from Twenty Countries

This article proposes an international segmentation of consumers based on their attitudes toward luxury. We perform a two-stage empirical study with a data set that combines samples from 20 countries. We provide a substantive interpretation of the results to show that three attitude segments dominate in a Western cultural context. We discuss several directions for future research based on the findings.     

基于Copula函数的股票相关性分析系统的设计与实现

以Copula函数为分析资产收益率相关性的依据,使用MATLAB与VC混合编程的方法,设计并实现了基于Copula函数的股票相关性分析系统.该系统能根据股票收益率自动选择较优的金融时间序列模型,并且可以根据不同Copula函数的特点,自动选择与股票间相关性拟合较好的Copula函数,从而定量地计算股票间相关性参数.该系统操作简单、方便,可以为风险投资决策者提供很好的决策支持.     

Convergence of stochastic approximation algorithms under irregular conditions

We consider a class of stochastic approximation (SA) algorithms for solving a system of estimating equations. The standard condition for the convergence of the SA algorithms is that the estimating functions are locally Lipschitz continuous. Here, we show that this condition can be relaxed to the extent that the estimating functions are bounded and continuous almost everywhere. As a consequence, the use of the SA algorithm can be extended to some problems with irregular estimating functions. Our theoretical results are illustrated by solving an estimation problem for exponential power mixture models.