How to reduce energy intensity to achieve sustainable development of China's transport sector? A cross-regional comparison analysis

China's transport sector has been attracting great attention for its excessive energy consumption and ever-increasing pollution emissions. Thus, reducing energy intensity is one of the top priorities of China's ongoing transport upgrade. In this paper, by establishing a panel data regression model derived from the Cobb–Douglas cost function, we focus on investigating the impacts of energy price and transport productivity on transport energy intensity at the national and regional levels. The study uses the provincial panel data for 2005–2016 to perform regression analysis. The results show that: (1) energy price has a significantly negative effect on transport energy intensity in the whole China and the eastern region, whereas it has no significant impacts in the central and western China. (2) Improvements in transport productivity can effectively decrease transport energy intensity in the whole China and the three major regions. (3) Applying an extended data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, we decompose transport productivity into four components (i.e., technical change, technology gap change, scale efficiency change, and pure efficiency change) and further differentiate their impacts in different regions. The results indicate that these four components have substantially different impacts in each region. These results provide some valuable insights for policymakers and enterprise entities aiming to adopt measures to reduce energy intensity and achieve sustainable development in China's transport sector.     

新审计报告与资本市场的信息反应——来自股价同步性和股价预测能力双维度的经验证据

新审计报告准则的施行旨在增加审计报告的信息含量及其决策相关性。以2015—2018年沪深非金融上市公司为样本，研究发现新审计报告施行后，上市公司的股价同步性显著下降，公司特质信息含量比例显著上升，股价特质信息效率显著提升,同时新审计报告的施行产生了增量信息。在此基础上，进一步分析新审计报告准则对资本市场特质信息效率的传导机制，发现投资者关注度对新审计报告(关键审计事项的披露数量)影响资本市场特质信息效率的过程中表现出显著的部分中介效应。分样本检验的结果表明，虽然AH股共同上市公司和非AH股共同上市公司之间的结果存在细微差异但整体趋势相似。通过对新审计报告的影响的分析，可以更好地理解该政策对资本市场的影响。     

Fire sales by euro area banks and funds: What is their asset price impact?

The assets under management of investment funds have soared in recent years, triggering a debate on their possible implications for financial stability. We contribute to this debate assessing the asset price impact of fire sales in a novel partial equilibrium model of euro area funds and banks calibrated over the period between 2008 and 2017. An initial shock to yields causes funds to sell assets to address investor redemptions, while both banks and funds sell assets to keep their leverage constant. These fire sales generate second-round price effects. We find that the potential losses due to the price impact of fire sales have decreased over time for the system. The contribution of funds to this impact is lower than that of banks. However, funds’ relative contribution has risen due to their increased assets under management and banks’ lower leverage and rebalancing towards loans. Should this trend continue, funds will become an increasingly important source of systemic risk.     

Quantile spillovers and dependence between Bitcoin,equities and strategic commodities

This paper has two aims. We first examine the dynamic spillovers between Bitcoin and 12 developed equities, gold, and crude oil for different market conditions using a Bayesian Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model with daily spot prices. Our econometric approach enables us to capture the left and right tails as well as the shoulders of the return distribution corresponding to volatility spillovers under the bear, normal, and bull market states among these financial assets. We quantify and trace the dependence and directional predictability from Bitcoin to other assets using the sample cross-quantilogram. Our key findings offer convincing evidence of time variation in the level of volatility. Spillovers between Bitcoin and other financial assets intensify during extreme global market conditions. Secondly, results from the cross-quantilogram indicate strong dependence and positive directional predictability between Bitcoin and most equities and crude oil when market returns are bullish. However, during the bearish market period, there is negative dependence and predictability from Bitcoin to stocks in Finland, the Netherlands, the U.S.A, and the crude oil market only. This implies that Bitcoin can act as a hedge to stocks in Finland, the Netherlands, the U.S.A, and the crude oil market. However, insignificant dependence and directional predictability from Bitcoin to the remaining assets indicate that Bitcoin may act as a safe-haven to these assets during bearish markets. Our findings hold important implications for both international investors and portfolio managers who consider Bitcoin as part of their portfolio diversification and other investment strategies.     

双边市场、不完全信息与二级价格歧视

本文研究了双边市场二级价格歧视问题。本文构建了包括广告商、消费者、垄断平台在内的两阶段博弈模型，研究了在最优与次优情况下平台的定价机制，分析了二级价格歧视对平台利润、社会福利等的影响。研究表明：（1）“顶部无扭曲”或“底部无扭曲”并不严格成立；（2）平台对观众提供的节目质量、广告插播量均可能出现类型逆转的情况；（3）二级价格歧视会增加社会总福利；（4）“会员制”是平台可能的占优定价机制之一。     

年轻高管与企业股价崩盘风险：来自“代理冲突观”的证据*

在企业纷纷实施高管年轻化战略的背景下，本文从股价崩盘风险的视角分析和检验了年轻高管风险偏好的经济后果及其作用机理。本文基于“个体认知观”和“代理冲突观”展开理论推演，采用中国沪深A股非金融上市公司的数据，检验发现，年轻高管会显著加剧企业未来的股价崩盘风险，且这种影响主要存在于民营企业，在国有企业并不显著。进一步针对具体作用机制的检验发现，年轻高管在投资决策中选择了更多能迅速提升个人收益的风险性投资项目，但在不能迅速提升个人收益的风险性投资项目上与年长高管没有显著差异。同时，年轻高管对股价崩盘风险的加剧效应仅仅存在于高管在上市公司领取薪酬的样本企业，且更高的独立董事比例能显著抑制年轻高管的股价崩盘风险加剧效应。这表明，年轻高管个体认知层面的风险偏好被其追求个人私利最大化的代理冲突所扭曲，进而为年轻高管风险偏好的“代理冲突观”提供了实证证据。     

城投债对地区产能过剩的影响：促进还是抑制*

在构建城投债影响产能过剩的理论基础上，以我国2004-2016年地级市面板数据为样本，本文检验了城投债影响产能过剩的具体效应和相关机制。研究发现：城投债与地区产能过剩之间呈现U型关系；其中城投债对产能过剩的影响在中西部地区、南方地区、大城市和金融危机爆发后更为显著；机制检验表明，地方政府借助城投债压低工业用地价格和投资交通基础设施会加剧产能过剩，且压低工业用地价格带来的效应更为严重。因此，本文从适度控制债务规模、改善体制激励措施和完善要素定价机制等方面提出相应建议。     

媒体情绪与房价波动*

本文使用2000—2015年中国112个大中城市媒体报道和房价月度指数研究了媒体异质性对房价波动的影响。研究发现，纸媒情绪对房价波动的影响大于网媒情绪，中央媒体情绪对房价波动的影响大于地方媒体情绪，明星微博情绪对房价波动的影响大于普通微博情绪，媒体语气确定性和报道篇幅对房价波动有正影响，明星城市媒体情绪较非明星城市更易引起房价波动。据此，为防范非理性房价波动，应加强对不同媒体报道的监管。     

Seven Fallacies Concerning Milton Friedman's “The Role of Monetary Policy”

This paper analyzes Milton Friedman's (1968a) article “The Role of Monetary Policy,” via a discussion of seven fallacies concerning the article. These fallacies are as follows: (i) “The Role of Monetary Policy” was Friedman's first public statement of the natural rate hypothesis. (ii) The Friedman–Phelps Phillips curve was already present in Samuelson and Solow's (1960) analysis. (iii) Friedman's specification of the Phillips curve was based on perfect competition and no nominal rigidities. (iv) Friedman's (1968a) account of monetary policy in the Great Depression contradicted the Monetary History’s version. (v) Friedman (1968a) stated that a monetary expansion will keep the unemployment rate and the real interest rate below their natural rates for two decades. (vi) The zero lower bound on nominal interest rates invalidates the natural rate hypothesis. (vii) Friedman's (1968a) treatment of an interest-rate peg was refuted by the rational expectations revolution. The discussion lays out the reasons why each of these seven items is a fallacy and infers key aspects of the framework underlying Friedman's (1968a) analysis.     

Money,Asset Prices,and the Liquidity Premium

This paper examines the effect of monetary policy on the market value of the liquidity services that financial assets provide, known as the liquidity premium. The theory predicts that money supply and nominal interest rates have positive effects on the liquidity premium, but asset supply has a negative effect. The empirical analysis with U.S. data confirms the theoretical predictions. The theory also proposes that the liquidity properties of assets can cause negative nominal yields when the money holding cost is low and liquid assets are scarce. The suggestive empirical findings in Switzerland to support this theoretical result are presented.