Estimating yield curves of the U.S. Treasury securities: An interpolation approach

Following the approach of interpolation, this paper proposes the multiple exponential decay model to fit yield curves for both the U.S. TIPS market and the conventional Treasury security market. Several estimation methods, including the unconstrained/constrained nonlinear minimization, quadratic programming, and the iterative linear least squares, are applied to estimate the unknown parameters according to different curve‐fitting purposes. Comparisons between the proposed model and the alternatives show that the multiple exponential decay successfully (1) adapts to a variety of shapes associated with yield curves, (2) (partially) keeps in line with the economic interpretations of Nelson–Siegel summarized by Diebold and Li ( 2006 ), and (3) dominates the competing models in curve‐fitting performance measured by mean fitted‐price errors over the sample period. In addition, the exact specification of a nonparametric interpolation model is pinned down by applying three statistical tools, which enable us to jointly take into account validity, optimality, and parsimoniousness of the proposed model.     

土地要素市场化配置能否促进工业结构优化？ ——基于微观土地交易数据的分析

研究目的:探究土地市场化配置在提高资源利用效率的同时,是否对产业结构产生了一定的积极影响。研究方法:理论剖析工业用地市场化发展促进工业结构优化升级的作用机理,利用2008—2015年间20余万条工业用地交易数据及工业经济面板数据进行实证检验,并进一步进行滞后性影响分析以及区域差异比较。研究结果:工业用地市场化水平与工业结构优化度总体存在正相关关系,各分项指标结果有所差异;滞后项系数显著为正;引入区域虚拟变量与工业用地市场化水平的交叉项,验证了区域性差异的存在。研究结论:土地市场发展越完善,产业结构越高,且该影响存在一定程度的滞后性;土地市场发展对劳动力结构优化度提升最为显著;在中部地区的推动作用强于其他地区。     

The funding of subsidiaries equity,double leverage and the risk of bank holding companies

Banking groups exploit double leverage when ‘debt is issued by the parent company and the proceeds are invested in subsidiaries as equity’. Financial authorities have frequently raised concerns about the issue of double leverage because this type of intra‐firm financing appears to allow for both the arbitrage of capital and the assumption of risk. This article focuses on the relationship between double leverage and risk‐taking within banking groups. First, we discuss this relationship based on an examination of balance sheet figures. Second, we analyze a large sample of United States Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) from 1990–2014. The results show that BHCs are more prone to risk when they increase their double leverage, namely, when the stake of the parent within subsidiaries is larger than the stand‐alone capital of the parent. This paper's primary implication for policymakers is that the regulators of complex financial entities should more efficiently address the issue of double leverage, thereby limiting the potential negative consequences that arise from corporate instability.     

Geography and capital structure

We investigate the impact of geographic location on firms’ capital structure decisions. We find strong evidence that location of a firm influences its capital structure. In particular, we find that centrally located firms have lower leverage ratios than do remotely located ones. Moreover, consistent with the hypothesis that those remotely located firms face more severe adverse selection problems, the effect of geographic location on capital structure is more pronounced when information asymmetry is higher. We further examine alternative explanations of the negative relation between firm geographic proximity and capital structure and show that the financial constraint effect and industry clustering effect do not explain our results. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutional investors and international investments in emerging economy firms: A behavioral risk perspective

While the extant literature has examined the influence of controlling and non-controlling principals on the internationalization decisions of emerging market firms, heterogeneity among non-controlling principals is largely ignored. The risk characteristics of different groups of owners, shaped by their institutional environments, could contribute to the differences in their preferences for firm internationalization. In this paper, we draw insights from institutional theory and behavioral risk perspective to examine the risk propensities and risk perceptions of various non-controlling principals, such as pressure-resistant (FIIs and mutual funds) and pressure-sensitive (banks, insurance companies and lending institutions) institutional investors. Empirical results from a sample of 2364 unique Indian firms during the 2005–2014 time-period show that, after controlling for firm-level resources and capabilities identified in prior literature, the ownership share of different types of institutional investors is associated with firms’ international investments differently. While pressure-sensitive institutional investors, such as banks and insurance companies, are not supportive of foreign investments by firms, pressure-resistant institutional investors, such as FIIs and mutual funds, are supportive of this strategic decision. Furthermore, our results show that the family ownership in a firm (measured in terms of family shareholding) further lowers the preference of pressure sensitive institutional investors for internationalization, whereas family ownership positively moderates the pressure resistant investors towards internationalization.     

Firm financing and growth in the Arab region

This paper documents how firms in Arab countries use equity, corporate bond and syndicated loan markets to obtain financing and grow. Working with a new dataset on issuance activity in domestic and international markets and firm performance, the paper finds that capital raising through these markets has grown rapidly since the early 1990s and involved an increasing number of firms. Whereas the amounts raised in equity and loan markets (relative to gross domestic product) stand well relative to international standards, bond issuance activity lags behind. However, bond financing has gained importance over time. Equity issuances take place primarily in domestic markets, whereas bonds and loans are mostly issued internationally, display long maturities and entail low levels of credit risk. Issuing firms from the Arab region are very large compared to international standards. They also tend to be larger, faster growing and more leveraged than non-issuing firms in Arab countries.     

Policy induced increases in private healthcare financing provide short-term relief of total healthcare expenditure growth: Evidence from OECD countries

Healthcare reforms have long been advocated as a cure to the increasing healthcare expenditures in advanced economies. Nevertheless, it has not been established whether a market solution via private financing, rather than public financing, curb aggregate healthcare expenditures. To our knowledge, this paper is the first that quantifies the impact of reforms that significantly increases (decreases) the private (public) share of healthcare financing on total healthcare expenditures relative to income in 20 OECD countries. Our reform measure is based on structural break testing of the private share of total expenditures, and verification using evidence of policy reforms. To quantify the effect of these reforms we apply Propensity Score Matching and Inverse Probability Weighted regression analysis. Over a 5-year evaluation period the reforms lead to an accumulated cost saving 0.45 percentage points of GDP. The yearly effects of the reforms are largest in the first years in the post-reform period and decreases in size as a function of time since the reform. Our findings suggest that the investigated healthcare reforms have a relatively short-lived effect on aggregate health spending relative to GDP. The findings are robust to various sensitivity tests.     

VIX term structure and VIX futures pricing with realized volatility

Using an extended LHARG model proposed by Majewski et al. (2015, J Econ, 187, 521–531), we derive the closed-form pricing formulas for both the Chicago Board Options Exchange VIX term structure and VIX futures with different maturities. Our empirical results suggest that the quarterly and yearly components of lagged realized volatility should be added into the model to capture the long-term volatility dynamics. By using the realized volatility based on high-frequency data, the proposed model provides superior pricing performance compared with the classic Heston–Nandi GARCH model under a variance-dependent pricing kernel, both in-sample and out-of-sample. The improvement is more pronounced during high volatility periods.     

Measuring Inflation Anchoring and Uncertainty: A U.S. and Euro Area Comparison

We use several U.S. and euro‐area surveys of professional forecasters to estimate a dynamic factor model of inflation featuring time‐varying uncertainty. We obtain survey‐consistent distributions of future inflation at any horizon, both in the U.S. and the euro area. Equipped with this model, we propose a novel measure of the anchoring of inflation expectations that accounts for inflation uncertainty. Our results suggest that following the Great Recession, inflation anchoring improved in the United States, while mild de‐anchoring occurred in the euro area. As of our sample end, both areas appear to be almost equally anchored.     

地下综合管廊混凝土爆灰检测及加固

针对某市钢筋混凝土地下综合管廊的现浇顶板、侧壁出现的混凝土爆灰质量缺陷,为确保管廊结构的安全使用,采用钻心法、超声波法、沸煮试验、爆灰物质的化学成分分析等检测方法,对爆灰现象进行了检测。结果显示,混凝土中存在的块状氧化钙与水熟化后体积增大1倍~2.5倍,使得混凝土在强度未达到设计抗拉强度前在块状氧化钙体积膨胀应力作用下被拉裂,导致了此类质量缺陷的发生。分析了质量缺陷对管廊结构的影响,并对管廊结构进行了加固设计及处理,满足了结构的正常安全使用要求。研究结果可为类似爆灰缺陷的设计及处理提供参考。