庚子赔款的债务化偿付及其影响

庚子赔款是中国近代史上最大一笔赔款,也是以长期债务形式体现的赔款。本文对庚子赔款的债务化偿付安排、利率水平、支付流程及经济影响等进行比较分析。发现:(1)庚子赔款本金4.5亿两,是清政府 1903 年财政收入的 4.33倍,但通过债务化偿付,每年支付赔款占财政收入比重逐步下降;(2)按购买力折算,庚子赔款本金约占1900年中国GDP的2.1%;(3)与当时主要国家长期债务利率相比,庚子赔款4%的利率属于中等水平;(4)将庚子赔款与德国“一战”赔款进行比较,发现赔款本金和占经济总量比重,中国低于德国,但中国每年支付赔款的财政压力高于德国;(5)庚子赔款偿付对近代中国的财税金融产生深刻影响,外籍海关税务司借机成为独立于中国政府的“第二财政”,外商银行藉此强化其“隐性中央银行” 地位,赔款还催生了货币流通的“新周期” 和“新危机”。总体上,赔款的债务化偿付安排不仅受政治外交形势主导,也与金融机构特别是银行跨国经营存在密切联系。赔款的经济影响不仅取决于偿付总量,也取决于经济治理能力和财税金融制度。国家财税金融制度落后,则受到冲击较大。     

提高出口退税能够“稳就业”和“稳外贸”吗?

近年来,全球贸易保护主义抬头加剧了各国之间的贸易摩擦。本文以中美贸易为例,探讨中国出口退税政策在稳就业、稳外贸以及应对贸易摩擦中的作用机制。首先基于1994-2020年季度数据发现:中国就业的波动较平稳;净出口则呈现高波动特征;中国就业和净出口呈现弱顺周期。这些周期特征与其他国家存在显著差异。其次构建了一个含有不完全金融市场和价格不完全传递的对称两国开放经济DSGE模型,数值模拟发现:在本国出口退税冲击和它国技术冲击下,模型能够较好地拟合中国就业和净出口的周期特征,其中财富效应和由贸易条件变化引起的支出转移效应是主要的内在传导机制。借助模型对中美贸易摩擦的反事实实验发现:中国单方面提高1%出口退税时,中国就业增长0.05%,净出口增长0.28%,呈现较强持续性,提高出口退税能够稳就业和稳外贸;当中国提高1%出口退税和美国提高1%进口关税时,中国就业增长0.03%,净出口增长0.16%,呈现较强持续性,勒纳中性不成立,此时出口退税在稳就业和稳外贸中的作用尽管有所削弱,但依然有效。     

Assessing the effects of policies on China’s outward foreign direct investment

This paper discusses the determinants of China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) with a special focus on the role of government policy. In particular, we investigate the types of policies that are most influential in promoting OFDI. Our main contribution is to analyse, for the first time, China’s OFDI policies by means of quantitative indicators. We refine policies definitions and distinguish between Regulation Policies, Service Policies, Promotion Policies and Supervision Policies, and we develop a methodology for collecting, screening and coding policies; then we create new indices to capture different types of policies. We find that Regulation Policies, Service Policies and the general attitude of the government have significant effects on China’s OFDI at the national level.     

A spatial approach to the FDI-growth nexus in Spain: Dealing with the headquarters effect

This paper examines the effects of inward FDI on economic growth across the Spanish regions over the period 1996–2013, paying particular attention to the ‘headquarters effect’, namely that FDI is not always registered where it is effectively made but in the region in which the firm’s headquarters is located. By estimating a panel Spatial Durbin Model to allow for the detection of spatial spillovers, two main findings are reported. First, FDI does foster economic growth. Second, only when the headquarters effect is properly addressed do spatial spillovers arise. Hence, this effect is masking the impact of regional FDI spillovers on growth, which affects the reliability of the results and, consequently, FDI policies choice. Importantly, the results are: a) robust to the way of computing the headquarters effect; b) independent of the spatial weight matrix specification; and c) confirmed when splitting FDI into different industrial and service branches.     

Social aspirations in European banks: peer-influenced risk behaviour

We test a sample of 3,586 banks from 33 European countries to determine whether performances above or below a social aspiration level (median performance of peer banks) influence banks’ aggregate risk levels. Our results are consistent with the behavioural theory of the firm and prospect theory in that we find that bank performance below a bank’s social aspiration level is followed by increased aggregate risk, i.e. risk-taking behaviour in the subsequent year. Although under-performing banks tend to be risk-takers, large banks and banks with high aggregate risk levels tend to limit the increase in their aggregate risk levels.     

The impact of foreign direct investment on productivity: New evidence for developing countries

We provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and total factor productivity (TFP) growth using cross-country data for 51 developing countries over the period 1984–2010. Our results suggest a weak direct effect of FDI on TFP growth but, after accounting for the roles of human capital and institutions as contingencies in the FDI-TFP growth relationship, we find a robust FDI-induced productivity growth response dependent on these ‘absorptive capacities’. However, the relevance of the human capital contingency effect diminishes when the effect of institutions is also considered, which suggests that improving institutions is relatively more important than human capital development for developing countries to realise productivity gains from FDI.     

Foreign aid preferences and perceptions in donor countries

We present original survey data on preferences for foreign aid in 24 donor countries from 2005 to 2008. On publicly-funded foreign aid (Official Development Assistance, or ODA), we find patterns that are consistent with a standard model of democratic policy formation, in which donations are treated as a pure public good. Controlling for perceptions of current ODA, we show that individual preferences for ODA are (i) negatively correlated with relative income within a country-year; and (ii) positively correlated with inequality at the country level. We extend the analysis to explain variation in the gap between desired aid and actual ODA, arguing that lobbying by high-income special interest groups can divert resources away from the median voter’s preferred level of aid. Consistent with this, we observe that ODA is significantly lower where policymakers are more susceptible to lobbying. Finally, we present a novel test of competing “crowding out” hypotheses. Self-reported private aid donations are negatively correlated with actual ODA, and positively correlated with perceived ODA. This finding is consistent with an emerging argument in the literature, whereby ODA crowds out private aid by enabling charities to forego fundraising activities and crowds in private aid through a signaling channel.     

Do foreign exchange forecasters apply asymmetric loss functions? Evidence from three major exchange rates

This article investigates which type of loss function is consistent with the hypothesis that major exchange rate forecasts, i.e. the euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen vis-à-vis the US dollar, are rational. We apply a comprehensive data set, which also allows us to examine different forecast horizons and heterogeneity of forecasters.     

How government regulation of interbank financing impacts risk for Chinese commercial banks

The rapid development of interbank financing in China has exposed financial institutions to increasing risk. In 2013, the China Banking Regulatory Commission implemented regulation on interbank financing for commercial banks. We assess the effectiveness of this regulation in reducing (i) the risk of commercial banks relative to non-bank financial institutions, where the latter are not subject to the regulation, and (ii) the risk of major commercial banks, which are more disposed to engage in interbank finance, relative to minor commercial banks. Our data are for the period 2006–2016 for 30 commercial banks (13 major, 17 minor) and 56 non-bank financial institutions. To control for other factors, we make use of a difference-in-difference estimation approach. Our measure of risk is the z-score, for which a higher value means a lower risk of bankruptcy. We find in support of the effectiveness of the regulation with z-scores for commercial banks rising relative to those of non-bank financial institutions and z-scores of major banks rising relative to those of minor banks following implementation of the regulation.     

Is China Living a Minsky Moment? Between the “Lender of Last Resort” and the Chinese Shadow Financial System

After Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008, the Central Bank of China (PBOC) created a big 1.8 trillion dollars package to boost the Chinese economy. It was a necessary key measure not only to prop up the economy, but also to try to preserve the two-digit growth of the GDP that existed before the Great Recession. The financial instability of international financial circuits made necessary the involvement of the central bank. Ten years later, China’s debt explosion went up during the financial crisis, from six to twenty-eight trillion dollars between 2007 and 2016. In other words, it went up from 148 to 260 percent of GDP during the same period. The goal of this article is to analyze whether China is living a “Minsky moment” or not, and what its implications are for international financial markets.