Financialization and commodity prices – an empirical analysis for coffee,cotton, wheat and oil

Commodity prices have crucial implications for developing countries. The question whether the financialization of commodity derivative markets has contributed to high and volatile commodity prices has been controversially debated. Building on limitations in the empirical literature, we estimate a multivariate Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model to assess the effect of different groups of financial investors (index investors and money managers) as well as fundamental and macroeconomic variables on the prices of coffee, cotton, wheat and oil. We find that, in contrast to index investors, money managers’ net long positions have a large statistically significant effect on commodity prices. This calls for policy interventions as commodity derivative markets may cease to perform their fundamental developmental roles.     

Does financial cooperation agreement improve the cointegration among ASEAN+3 money markets?

This paper aims to empirically examine the degree of cointegration among ASEAN+3 money markets in order to determine and adopt remedial actions pursuant to vulnerabilities in the region’s money markets that indicate an inability to prevent possible financial crises. In order to validate vulnerabilities, this paper investigates the degree to which money markets are integrated. Inter-bank lending rates are divided based on agreement periods as well as on income levels of regional economies. The VAR-based Cointegration test and the VECM have been applied in the investigation process. The findings are: (1) weak integration during the pre-agreement period; (2) substantial progress toward the post-agreement period; (3) both high- and low-income markets integrate in a cooperative way; and (4) the agreement produces an impact that is incomplete in so far as integrating the region’s money markets. The finding of this study offers implications for the regional makers.     

A new intellectual property metric for standardization activities

This study formulates a method to measure the effects of standardization to assist in evaluating innovation and R&D policies. Its main purpose is to examine standardization activities within R&D organizations. This allows for a more appropriate policy evaluation framework than examining such activities within standard development organizations does. The study also redefines the conventional notion of intellectual property (IP) normatively and introduces the term “integrated IP” to reflect our new concept of joining IP and standardization activities. Our new concept captures the “fuzzy” impact of standardization on R&D to improve innovation management. The study presents a vector equation expressing the new IP definition and uses it to model revenues arising from a standard-essential patent for strategic IP management with standardization. The model indicates the importance of patents commercially required for product differentiation for the purpose of innovation with standards.     

金融信贷与房地产价格关系分析——基于上海市实证研究

随着我国房价快速上涨,金融信贷规模进一步扩张,如何对房价进行调控,维护金融稳定成为亟需解决的问题.论文利用上海市2008年1月至2012年12月的月度数据,采用协整分析技术和向量误差修正模型方法对上海市金融信贷规模与房地产价格之间关系进行实证研究,避免了以往利用全国数据进行研究时固有的区域差异问题.上海市作为我国经济发展最发达的城市,其房地产市场、金融市场最具有代表性,研究结果也更具前瞻性.研究结果表明金融信贷规模与房地产价格从长期来看互为负向反馈作用,而在短期中,二者表现出正向反馈的推动作用.     

基于锁相同步检测的数字化阻抗测试方法

<正> 一、问题的提出 “开放的地区主义”(Open Regionalism)概念第一次明确的提出,始于1986年5月日本环太平洋合作研究小组的最后报告。这一概念在太平洋经济合作理事会(PECC)和亚太经合组织(APEC)的实践中得到了进一步的发展和完善。“开放的地区主义”不仅已成为APEC运作的基本准则之一,而且也正被越来越多的区域经济组织所接受。这无疑是一种进步,因为它使区域经济组织在更大程度上与全球多边自由贸易体系取得了相容性,“从区域贸易自由化迈向全球贸易自由化”的梦想也因之而成为可能。     

Testing for rational bubbles in the US housing market

The presence of a bubble in the US housing market prior to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis is investigated. This is done by looking into the relationship between house prices and rental prices, known as the price–rent ratio, which is an important measure of a potential deviation between house prices and its fundamental value. Additionally, the interest rate is taken into account since it is an important factor in determining demand for housing mortgages and thereby influencing house prices, and explosive behavior of house prices is considered. These relationships are investigated through a theoretical and econometrical framework. The empirical evidence suggests that there was a bubble in the housing market prior to the financial crisis, even when controlling for the decreasing interest rate and the fundamental information given by the rental price in the period. Explosiveness was the main source of the price increase, such that a bubble was present in the housing market after correcting for other fundamental factors. The econometric procedures used in the analysis may therefore be relevant for monitoring the housing market.     

Monetization and growth in colonial New England, 1703–1749

We examine econometrically the real effects of paper money's introduction into colonial New England over the 1703–1749 period. Departing from earlier analyses that focus primarily on the depreciation of paper money in the region, we show that expansion of the money stock promoted growth in modern sector activity and not the other way around. We also find that bills emitted for seigniorage purposes had a positive effect on the modern sector, while bills issued through loan banks did not.     

中国的通货膨胀:一个新开放宏观模型及其检验

本文基于新开放宏观经济学(NOEM)框架分析了中国的通货膨胀问题,探讨了导致通货膨胀的原因以及各原因之间的相互关系,并利用贝叶斯向量自回归模型(BVAR)进行了计量检验。发现新开放宏观模型对中国的通货膨胀有较好的解释力,货币供应量无论是在长期还是短期都是诱发通货膨胀的主要原因,而外部冲击向中国的传导路径是受阻碍的。     

La Ley de Okun y la flexibilidad laboral en México: un análisis de cointegración, 1997Q3-2014Q1

Because the labor flexibility has become an increasing condition in labor markets, we estimated the effect of labor flexibility on the unemployment rate in Mexico for 1997Q3-2014Q1. For this fact, we estimated a VECM(4) inspired on the Okun's Law which includes a labor flexibility index, measured by the ratio of the temporary contracts to the total employees in the formal labor market. As expected by the Okun's Law (1962), we found a negative relationship between GDP and the unemployment rate. However, the most interesting result is that the labor flexibility index exhibits an increasing effect on the unemployment rate with an elasticity of 1.28.     

Effects of foreign and domestic economic policy uncertainty shocks on South Korea

This paper investigates the effects of foreign and domestic economic policy uncertainty shocks on South Korea via structural VARs. The results show that both foreign and domestic policy uncertainty shocks exert negative and significant impacts on South Korea. Foreign economic policy uncertainty shocks are found to be more dominant than domestic economic policy uncertainty shocks in influencing the Korean output. The results also indicate that economic policy uncertainty that originates from foreign countries is a significant source of disturbance to the Korean economy, but domestic policy uncertainty plays a rather limited role in explaining Korean business fluctuations.