Target price forecasts: The roles of the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment

This paper reveals that in addition to fundamental factors, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment play an important role in analysts’ target price formation. Analysts’ forecasts of short-term earnings and long-term earnings growth are shown to be important explanatory variables for target prices; equally, the 52-week high price and recent investor sentiment are also shown to explain target price levels and especially target price biases. Our analysis additionally reveals that analysts place greater weight on these two non-fundamental factors in settings with greater task complexity and to some extent in those with greater resource constraints. Conversely, on balance, the results suggest that this increased reliance does not translate into an increased impact per unit of each non-fundamental factor on forecast bias. Finally, our results show that target prices are useful in predicting future stock returns beyond earnings forecasts and commonly used risk proxies. However, in an internally consistent fashion, the informativeness of target prices for future returns is significantly reduced when greater weight is placed on either the 52-week high or recent investor sentiment in the target price formation process.     

Wealth transfer through private placements: Evidence from China

We examine private issuance of public equity (PIPE) in China, and our results suggest that PIPE investors benefit from the price manipulation before and after issuance. These investors tend to cash out after lockup expiration and make large profits. We also find evidence that the trading of PIPE investors after lockup expiration is informed. Tests about the abnormal returns in the 3 years after lockup expiration suggest that at least part of the benefits PIPE investors receive come from wealth transfer from outside investors. Overall, PIPE issuers in China seem to use an opaque mechanism to compensate PIPE investors.     

Short-sale constraints and informational efficiency to private information: A natural experiment

Exploiting a regulatory change in short-sale constraints (Regulation SHO) as a natural experiment, this paper examines the effect of short-sale constraints on informational efficiency of stock prices to private information. I find that short-sellers act as informed traders prior to forthcoming analyst news and trade on negative private information. When short-sale constraints are relaxed for pilot stocks (treatment group), both trading volume and stock price sensitivity increase prior to the analyst announcement for bad news but not for good news, relative to that of nonpilot stocks (control group). The findings are consistent with the Diamond and Verrecchia model that predicts that short-selling increases the speed of adjustment of stock prices to private negative information. In the cross-section, the effect of Reg SHO is stronger in stocks of firms with weak and uncertain information environments (i.e., small firms and firms with high analyst forecast dispersion).     

Animal disease outbreaks and food market price dynamics: Evidence from regime‐dependent modelling and connected scatterplots

The economic impacts of animal disease outbreaks have been widely discussed in the literature. Most authors have centred their attention on estimating the direct costs. Recent studies have shown that the indirect economic effects might lead to equal or even higher welfare losses. This study aims to contribute to this field of research by assessing the effect of an animal disease outbreak on food market price dynamics in Mexico, accounting for the potential effect of an antitrust intervention. We employ a regime‐dependent vector error correction model and a connected scatterplot analysis. The results show that both the outbreak and the antitrust intervention caused structural breaks in food market price dynamics between producers and consumers, reflected in an increase in the absolute component of the marketing margin, with serious food security implications.     

中国木质家具出口贸易与汇率波动关系研究

木质家具是我国最重要的出口林产品之一。人民币汇率改革后,人民币总体呈升值趋势,这一趋势提高了国产木质家具的出口价格,会产生阻碍出口的作用;与此同时其也会使进口原材料价格相对降低、促进原材料的进口,二者相互作用会共同影响木质家具出口额。通过建立回归模型,研究人民币汇率波动对中国木质家具出口贸易额的影响,结果表明人民币汇率与中国木质家具出口额呈负相关,但是通过人民币贬值来促进出口的策略并不明智。     

The Effect of the Interaction between Price and Time Preference on Cigarette Consumption among Pregnant Women

In this study, I explore smoking behavior among pregnant U.S. women using the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The key aspect of this study is the availability of smoking participation data before and during pregnancy. I consider the probabilities of smoking cessation while pregnant as the outcome. I find that pregnant women who smoke are less responsive to price changes when they are more future-oriented. Women who are more present-oriented are more likely to smoke and consume more cigarettes given that they smoke more than those who are future-oriented. Moreover, those who discount the future more heavily are more sensitive to the money price of cigarettes than those who are more future-oriented. I focus on the role of time preference and the interaction between time preference and price in determining these outcomes.     

实体企业金融投资收益对中国宏观经济波动的影响分析

实体企业热衷于从金融市场获取投资收益，个别企业甚至出现了过度金融化的倾向，成为经济新常态大背景下的一种独特的经济现象。对2009~2018年我国宏观经济的发展动向及实体企业金融化的具体数据展开研究，并以同期沪深两市3567个有效面板数据为研究对象，建立一种多元回归统计分析模型，研究实体企业金融投资收益对宏观经济波动所产生的影响。实证分析结果表明，实体企业投资金融收益与宏观经济波动显著相关，这种过度金融投资行为增加了金融市场的不稳定性，给宏观经济的平稳发展带来了新的阻力。     

房产税促进地区产业结构优化的路径与异质性表现——产业转移和企业创新视角的沪渝比较

房地产市场过度繁荣带来的房价过快上涨会影响要素流动和企业行为，进而加剧资源错配，不利于地区产业结构优化。征收房产税可以有效抑制房价过快上涨，通过地区相对房价的下降减轻资源错配程度，并从影响产业转移和推动企业创新两条路径促进地区产业结构优化。运用合成控制法对上海和重庆房产税改革试点的政策效应进行评估，结果表明：重庆的房产税政策有效抑制了房价过快上涨，促进了先进产业的转入和创新水平的提高，进而显著提高了地区产业结构合理化和高级化水平，地区产业结构优化效应明显；上海的房产税政策对房价上涨的抑制作用不明显，高房价阻碍了高技能人才的流入，导致其产业高级化水平的提高更多依赖于低端服务业的发展，不利于地区产业结构合理化，总体上并未能有效促进地区产业结构优化。上海与重庆房产税政策效应的差异不仅源于其政策力度的不同，还由于两地经济发展水平和产业结构的不同。房产税政策必须有效抑制房价上涨，并应结合本地经济发展实际因地制宜，才能更好地促进地区产业结构优化。     

The impacts of COVID-19 on the global airline industry: An event study approach

This study examines the short-term impact of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on 52 listed airline companies around the world by using event study methodology. The results demonstrate that airline stock returns decline more significantly than the market returns after three major COVID-19 announcements were made. Overall, investors react differently during the three selected events. The strongest overreaction is noted in the post-event period of the World Health Organization's and President Trump's official announcements. Moreover, the findings confirm that traders in Western countries are more responsive to recent information than the rest of the world. The findings call for immediate policy designs in order to alleviate the impact of the pandemic in the airline industry around the globe.     

Share trading activity and the rise of the rentier in the UK before 1920*

Abstract

Using a hand-collected dataset, we examine share trading activity over the period 1882–1920 for the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company, one of the largest UK companies of the time. Our main finding is that the steady flow of rentiers into the shareholding constituency of this company stymied share trading activity. Another important finding is that share trading still occurred during the closure of the stock exchange in 1914, but on a much-reduced scale. We also find that there was a substantial boom in share trading and in insurance stock prices after World War I.