Economic slowdowns,hazard rates and foreign ownership

This paper evaluates the link between foreign ownership and firm exit during crises, using a longitudinal micro dataset over an 18-year period. We address two main questions: first, if foreign affiliates have different failure rates than domestic firms during economic downturns, and second if the foreignness effect differs between two different economic downturns. The results partially confirm the liability of foreignness argument, suggesting that when the crisis was more pronounced at home than abroad, the differences in hazard rates between foreign and domestic firms reduce. The footloose argument is also only partially confirmed. For policy makers, our results on survival dynamics during crises are not against policies stimulating inward investment. There is no need to fear that foreign firms destabilize more than usual the host economy during economic slowdowns by immediately closing down operations.     

Why do commercial banks hold government bonds? The case of Japan

We investigate the determinants of the demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs) by commercial banks in Japan. In particular, by estimating portfolio equations for JGB demand and bank loans, based on a panel data set from the late 1990s to the 2000s, we rigorously test the popular assertion that the long stagnation of the real economy caused a shift in the portfolios of commercial banks from bank lending to JGBs. We find that the popular assertion is not empirically supported. Rather, the portfolio shift from loans to JGBs has been caused by a fall in the ratio of the loan rate to unit lending costs, or the bank’s price–cost margin for lending.     

环境规制与中国外商直接投资变化——基于DEA多重分解的实证研究

中国经济进入“新常态”,产能过剩和环境污染问题日益突出,国际投资环境不容乐观,“供给侧结构性改革”为中国经济“新常态”下的必要举措。本文探索环境规制下我国FDI变化的影响因素,通过FDI的子向量距离函数定义“环境规制生产技术”和“非环境规制生产技术”,以此构造环境规制的成本效应,测度中国30个省份1999-2015年的环境规制成本,并在此基础上对实际FDI的变化进行分解。本文的主要结论有:2001年后,中国各省份的环境规制成本呈现整体上升趋势,东部地区的环境规制效果最为明显;环境规制下,中国各省份的实际FDI增速先加快后减缓,2015年之前,第二产业对FDI的吸引力最强,2014年开始,第三产业对FDI的吸引显著增强,“供给侧结构性改革”初显成效,促进了我国的产业结构优化升级。反事实检验显示导致各个时期FDI变化的影响因素不尽相同,但随着改革开放的力度不断加大,全要素生产率和产业结构对FDI分布的影响显著增强。     

Private information in currency markets

Using daily abnormal currency returns for the universe of countries with flexible exchange rates, we show local currency depreciations ahead of unscheduled, public sovereign debt downgrade announcements. Consistent with the private information hypothesis, the effect is stronger in lower institutional quality countries and holds after we control for concurrent public information and for publicly available rumors about the forthcoming downgrades. Our results persist when abnormal currency returns are adjusted for global carry and dollar risk factors, world equity and bond returns, as well as local stock market returns. Finally, the currency depreciations are permanent, providing evidence for a link between fundamentals and currency markets.     

Geographic patterns of Poland’s FDI: the investment development path perspective

The purpose of the present study is to incorporate geographic analysis of FDI into the classic IDP model. By supplementing the traditional analysis of the net outward investment (NOI) position with an analysis of geographic patterns in inward and outward FDI, the authors strive to offer a better explanation of Poland’s current NOI position and provide more in-depth support to some necessary policy recommendations. Hence the main contribution of this study to the international business scholarship is two-fold. It (1) further develops the IDP research methodology; and (2) provides a better understanding of the idiosyncratic nature of the IDP of Poland.     

Foreign Ownership and Firm Innovation: Evidence from Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether foreign equity investment promotes domestic firms’ innovation activities. Using panel data on the Korean firms during the 1999–2013 period, we find that foreign ownership has a positive effect on firms’ innovation activities. Furthermore, we also show that, as compared to non-chaebol firms, chaebol firms’ innovation activity becomes much greater with the increase of foreign ownership. Finally, we investigate industry-level spillover effects of innovation. Specifically, we find that foreign ownership promotes innovation activities via forward linkage, the effect of which is also more pronounced in chaebol firms.     

Bank ownership type and temporal evolution of long‐term bank funding in the period 2005–2017

This study uses a large panel dataset of Western European banks to examine the determinants of bank funding stability. Banks are divided into three categories by bank ownership type; the ownership types in this study are commercial banks, cooperative banks and savings banks. Three sources of stable bank funding are investigated: customer deposits, equity, and long‐term liabilities. Furthermore, the sum of these funding components is used as a proxy variable for a bank's total available stable funding (ASF). A special focus is on the temporal evolution of these funding types. The regression results show that commercial banks’ funding became much more stable in the period 2005–2017. However, that funding remains, on average, less stable than does cooperative and savings banks’ funding. In addition, funding stability has remained at the pre‐crisis level in cooperative and savings banks, despite a steep dip in cooperative banks’ ASF during the sovereign debt crisis. Furthermore, banks substantially decreased financing from long‐term liabilities after the financial crisis, replacing it with customer deposits and equity.     

对外直接投资促进了出口国内附加值率提升吗

针对企业对外直接投资是否提升了企业出口国内附加值率的问题,利用倾向得分匹配法为2004~2007年386家对外直接投资企业找到与其可比较的对照组,运用倍差法检验了对外直接投资对企业出口国内附加值率的影响效应。研究发现:企业对外直接投资显著提升了企业的出口国内附加值率,且这种促进作用随着时间的推移逐渐增强;投资动机、投资目的国的发展水平对出口国内附加值率的促进效应存在差异性;在使用不同的估计方法和替换核心被解释变量进行检验后,结论依然稳健。     

绿色信贷如何影响银行财务绩效——基于地区绿色发展异质性的视角

基于2007~2017年中国34家商业银行非平衡面板数据，实证检验了商业银行开展绿色信贷对其财务绩效的影响，并利用《中国绿色发展指数报告》提供的分省绿色发展指数，考察了绿色发展对绿色信贷与银行财务绩效关系的调节效应。结果表明：商业银行发放绿色信贷投放有助于改善其财务绩效，并且这种改善效应主要来自绿色信贷对银行生息资产收益率的提升作用；绿色发展水平能够增强银行投放绿色信贷的经济效益，并且这种增强效应主要与地方经济增长绿化度和地方政府对绿色发展的支持度有关。商业银行应积极开展绿色信贷业务；政府部门应加强和完善绿色信贷激励政策，以推动绿色金融与绿色经济协同发展。     

State-owned banks in the market for corporate control

We study the pre-deal characteristics of state-owned banks acquiring other companies, relative to their private counterparts. We build a unique international data-set of 3682 deals in the years 2003–2013. Econometric results highlight that those state-owned banks that are acting as acquirers have an ex-ante performance similar to their private benchmarks. The results are driven by the role of development banks. This new finding points to the recent evolution of some types of contemporary state-owned financial players.