A Historical Review of Postponement Research

This historical review traces the development of postponement research starting in the fifties. The focus is on seven related themes: connecting form and time postponement, conceptual extensions to postponement, decoupling points, design for postponement, customization and mass customization, factors favoring postponement implementation, and postponement in global settings. Within these themes, the review includes concepts such as postponement costs, decoupling points, part commonality, and the impact of demand correlations on the benefits of postponement. The review suggests that substantial progress has been made in postponement research.     

How Owners Matter? An Examination of Ownership Type in Corporate Disaster Relief Giving

Little research has investigated the effect of ownership identity (or type) and corporate philanthropy experience on giving. In this research, relying on legitimacy theory, we first assess the effect of ownership identity on corporate philanthropy (CP) in the context of the 2008 earthquake in China. Then we explore moderation effects of firms' prior CP experience and size as proxies for perceived legitimacy on owners' efforts at increasing giving and legitimacy. We find that state and CEO ownership are deterrents, while non‐SOE and institutional ownership enhances giving probability and amount. In addition, there is evidence that firm size and prior CP weaken the effects of institutional ownership on CP. This study provides a complete assessment of owner behaviour. Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consequences of Debt Forgiveness: Strategic Default Contagion and Lender Learning

I use a unique data set of loans to small business owners to examine whether lenders face adverse consequences when they grant debt forgiveness to borrowers. I provide evidence consistent with borrowers communicating their debt forgiveness to other borrowers, who then more frequently strategically default on their own obligations. This strategic default contagion is economically large. When the lender doubles debt forgiveness, the default rate increases by 10.9% on average. Using an exogenous shock to the lender's forgiveness policy, my findings suggest that as the lender learns about the extent of borrower communication the lender tightens its debt forgiveness policy to mitigate default contagion.     

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.     

特许权价值、最优关闭策略和存款保险定价

随着存款保险制度的推出以及金融机构退出机制的完善，国家声誉将逐渐退出银行无形资本。在激励相容的金融监管趋势下，特许权价值等市场约束力量会显著影响到商业银行的风险承担。在此逻辑基础上，以我国16家上市商业银行为研究对象，一方面探讨特许权价值影响下不同产权结构的商业银行的最优救助机制，另一方面通过最优救助临界指标，利用银行重组模型，推导合理的存款保险风险差别费率。     

An application of two-stage quantile regression to insurance ratemaking

Two-part models based on generalized linear models are widely used in insurance rate-making for predicting the expected loss. This paper explores an alternative method based on quantile regression which provides more information about the loss distribution and can be also used for insurance underwriting. Quantile regression allows estimating the aggregate claim cost quantiles of a policy given a number of covariates. To do so, a first stage is required, which involves fitting a logistic regression to estimate, for every policy, the probability of submitting at least one claim. The proposed methodology is illustrated using a portfolio of car insurance policies. This application shows that the results of the quantile regression are highly dependent on the claim probability estimates. The paper also examines an application of quantile regression to premium safety loading calculation, the so-called Quantile Premium Principle (QPP). We propose a premium calculation based on quantile regression which inherits the good properties of the quantiles. Using the same insurance portfolio data-set, we find that the QPP captures the riskiness of the policies better than the expected value premium principle.     

How government regulation of interbank financing impacts risk for Chinese commercial banks

The rapid development of interbank financing in China has exposed financial institutions to increasing risk. In 2013, the China Banking Regulatory Commission implemented regulation on interbank financing for commercial banks. We assess the effectiveness of this regulation in reducing (i) the risk of commercial banks relative to non-bank financial institutions, where the latter are not subject to the regulation, and (ii) the risk of major commercial banks, which are more disposed to engage in interbank finance, relative to minor commercial banks. Our data are for the period 2006–2016 for 30 commercial banks (13 major, 17 minor) and 56 non-bank financial institutions. To control for other factors, we make use of a difference-in-difference estimation approach. Our measure of risk is the z-score, for which a higher value means a lower risk of bankruptcy. We find in support of the effectiveness of the regulation with z-scores for commercial banks rising relative to those of non-bank financial institutions and z-scores of major banks rising relative to those of minor banks following implementation of the regulation.     

Sustainability of the fiscal imbalance and public debt under fiscal policy asymmetries in Sri Lanka

This paper investigates the sustainability of Sri Lanka’s fiscal imbalance and public debt. To test for sustainability of the fiscal imbalance, the study applies a symmetric ARDL (autoregressive distributive lag) technique to estimate a government intertemporal budget constraint. And to test for sustainability of public debt, it applies an asymmetric ARDL technique to estimate a fiscal reaction function, which allows for differential responses in the primary budget balance depending on whether shocks to regressors are positive or negative. Annual data for the period 1961–2018 are used in the estimations. The results indicate that Sri Lanka’s fiscal management is inconsistent with strong form sustainability, which requires that expenditures not grow faster than revenues. However, estimation of the fiscal reaction function finds robust evidence for fiscal policy asymmetries. Evidence emerges that Sri Lanka’s fiscal policy stance is procyclical with strong stabilization tendencies in economic expansions that are not sustained in contractions. Against upsurges in the debt-to-GDP ratio, authorities are found to pursue fiscal consolidation, thus suggesting weak form sustainability.     

Separation of ownership and control for Chinese listed firms: Effect on the cost of debt and the moderating role of bank competition

This research investigates the effect of the separation between firm ownership and control on the cost of debt, with attention to the moderating role of state ownership and bank competition. We make use of a sample of 1744 Chinese A-share firms for the years 2011–2017. We find that separation between ownership and control is positively associated with the cost of debt. This is consistent with the view that separation of control from ownership allows controlling shareholders to engage in tunneling and other behaviors that increase the risk of default. State ownership weakens this positive link because government debt guarantees mitigate the risk of default. Greater competition in the banking industry generally reduces the cost of debt for non-state enterprises while having no effect for state enterprises. At the same time, greater bank competition amplifies the positive effect of ownership and control separation on debt cost for non-state enterprises as banks must still cover the higher default risk. Finally, the global financial crisis raised the cost of debt for non-state enterprises but had no effect for state enterprises.     

Intranational Consumption Risk Sharing in South Korea: 2000–2016

This paper examines consumption risk sharing among 16 regions in South Korea over the 2000–2016 period. The empirical results show that 91.8 percent of shocks to gross regional domestic product are smoothed in South Korea. Capital markets, the tax‐transfer system and credit markets absorb 29.9, 28.9 and 33.0 percent of shocks to gross regional domestic product, respectively. Most notably, South Korea relies more on credit markets for risk sharing than capital markets, an opposite pattern to advanced countries like the USA, Canada and Australia. Furthermore, the patterns of consumption risk sharing are different before and after the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, and differences in regional industrial structure and local development can influence these patterns. This paper attempts to infer the connection between these findings and both the rapid economic growth of South Korea and the Asian and global financial crises.