Liquidity shocks and real GDP growth: Evidence from a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR

We examine the dynamic impact of liquidity shocks resonating in stock and housing markets on real GDP growth. We fit a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR model with stochastic volatility to US data from 1970 to 2014. GDP becomes highly sensitive to house market liquidity shocks as disruptions in the sector start to emerge, yet more resilient to stock market liquidity shocks throughout time. We provide substantial evidence in favour of asymmetric responses of GDP growth both across the business cycle, and among business cycle troughs. Stock and house market liquidity shocks explain, on average, 17% and 35% of the variation in GDP during the Great Recession, respectively.     

Self-service technology kiosk design for restaurants: An QFD application

Self-service technology (SST) has been increasingly integrated into today’s service industry. The ability to understand how customers perceive SST and improve its quality is therefore important for both researchers and practitioners. Applying the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology, this research established an SST House of Quality (HoQ) structure for restaurants by synthesizing the inputs of consumers and restaurant industry experts, the managers. This HoQ presents a relationship matrix that allows restaurants to assess SST attributes in relation to SST technical design specificities in a measurable way. Such a relationship matrix can assist in designing restaurant SST to deliver better service and customer experiences. This research thus provides an illustration of how the QFD method can be a useful tool in SST service design in restaurants.     

财政分权、房价上涨与消费抑制

本文认为财政分权水平的提高是中国房价上涨和居民消费下降的重要制度性因素。首先,我们基于省际面板数据模型获得了这一观点的经验证据,在控制了货币增长(通货膨胀)等因素后,可以发现财政分权水平的提高对房价上涨和消费下降有显著的影响。为了增强这一结论的稳健性,我们构建了一个包含财政分权和房价的动态一般均衡模型,从理论机制上确认了财政分权对于房价上涨和消费下降的重要性。     

Swap-flexibility in the assignment of houses

A house allocation rule should be flexible in its response to changes in agents’ preferences. We propose a specific notion of this flexibility. An agent is said to be swap-sovereign over a pair of houses at a profile of preferences if the rule assigns her one of the houses at that profile and assigns her the other house when she instead reports preferences that simply swap the positions of the two houses. A pair of agents is said to be mutually swap-sovereign over their assignments at a profile if the rule exchanges their assignments when they together report such ‘swap preferences’. An allocation rule is individually swap-flexible if any pair of houses has a swap-sovereign agent, and is mutually swap-flexible if any pair of houses has either a swap-sovereign agent or mutually swap-sovereign agents. We show for housing markets that the top-trading-cycles rule is the unique strategy-proof, individually rational and mutually swap-flexible rule. In house allocation problems, we show that queue-based priority rules are uniquely strategy-proof, individually swap-flexible and envy non-bossy. Varying the strength of non-bossiness, we characterise the important subclasses of sequential priority rules (additionally non-bossy) and serial priority rules (additionally pair-non-bossy and pair-sovereign).     

House price convergence in euro zone and non-euro zone countries

This study investigates whether single currency use increased house price convergence among various countries. First, the panel unit root test results indicate that the house prices in euro zone countries were more correlated than the house prices in non-euro zone countries. Second, the house prices in various European countries converged towards the house prices in Germany, which uses the single currency, rather than towards those in the United Kingdom, indicating that single currency use increased the influence of the German housing market on other markets. Finally, the log t regression model, a new convergence test, was employed and determined that the house prices in various European countries were not converging before 1992 but began to do so after that year. After the euro was implemented as an official currency, the house prices in various countries converged towards a consistent level. On the basis of the relative transition paths, this study determines that the differences among housing markets in various countries have continuously decreased since 1992. The empirical results indicate that the law of one price is applicable to tradable goods and that single currency use can integrate housing markets, which include non-tradable goods.     

房价的两种定义三分结构及其宏调功能应用——在稳定房地产价格中缩小“三大”差距的途径原理与法律政策建议

房子具安居功能,但土地的经久性和稀缺性使其更具投资性。CIP=（0,4]乃置业投资能力系数,区间值表明房地产均价约等于人平均月薪三倍时,可认为房价正常。CIP=（0,4]又是反映房价收入比的系数,房价Hp依据CIP建立,其基于购买力的三个Hp/3结构。随着科技生产力的发展,土地产出率不断提高,GDP、房价都应增长。基于地球村由人类共有和科技生产力由人类创造,增长的GDP应由全民共享,故房价的Hp/3应用于补贴＂三农＂补偿土地出让以缩小工农城乡差距,另Hp/3应用于充实社保以缩小贫富差距,剩下的Hp/3作为房屋造价和开发商利润。可见,房价经分解成三个Hp/3的组成结构后具有调控功能,将房价稳定在（0,4]内有利于缩小收入差距,从而在改善民生克服经济危机中推动GDP/工资平稳增长。     

基于房屋编码的房屋权属生命周期研究

在现有房屋全生命周期研究成果的基础上，提出以房屋编码构建房屋权属生命周期。研究在时空信息上，以“幢”为单位表达属性信息的方法，尝试将房屋的空间信息、时间信息和属性信息三者融合。通过分析房屋属性信息的时间序列演变，提出其在房地产市场监测和房屋违法分割合并监测中的具体应用。     

A method for determining customer requirement weights based on TFMF and TLR

‘Customer requirements’ (CRs) management plays an important role in enterprise systems (ESs) by processing customer-focused information. Quality function deployment (QFD) is one of the main CRs analysis methods. Because CR weights are crucial for the input of QFD, we developed a method for determining CR weights based on trapezoidal fuzzy membership function (TFMF) and 2-tuple linguistic representation (TLR). To improve the accuracy of CR weights, we propose to apply TFMF to describe CR weights so that they can be appropriately represented. Because the fuzzy logic is not capable of aggregating information without loss, TLR model is adopted as well. We first describe the basic concepts of TFMF and TLR and then introduce an approach to compute CR weights. Finally, an example is provided to explain and verify the proposed method.     

The role of liquidity constraints in the response of monetary policy to house prices

We analyse the optimal response of monetary policy to house prices in a New Keynesian framework. A positive wealth effect from housing is derived from liquidity constrained consumers. Housing equity withdrawal allows them to convert an increase in housing value into consumption and we show that monetary policy should react to house prices due to their effect on consumption by constrained agents. Moreover, we allow the share of liquidity constrained consumers to vary with house prices. Consequently, the optimal weights on expected inflation, the output gap and house prices in the optimal interest rate rule vary over time too.     

Housing markets and the financial crisis of 2007–2009: Lessons for the future

An unsustainable weakening of credit standards induced a US mortgage lending and housing bubble, whose consumption impact was amplified by innovations altering the collateral role of housing. In countries with more stable credit standards, any overshooting of construction and house prices owed more to traditional housing supply and demand factors. Housing collateral effects on consumption also varied, depending on the liquidity of housing wealth. Lessons for the future include recognizing the importance of financial innovation, regulation, housing policies, and global financial imbalances for fueling credit, construction, house price and consumption cycles that vary across countries.