How do house prices affect consumption? Evidence from micro data

Housing is a major component of wealth. Since house prices fluctuate considerably over time, it is important to understand how these fluctuations affect households’ consumption decisions. Rising house prices may stimulate consumption by increasing households’ perceived wealth, or by relaxing borrowing constraints. This paper investigates the response of household consumption to house prices using UK micro data. We estimate the largest effect of house prices on consumption for older homeowners, and the smallest effect, insignificantly different from zero, for younger renters. This finding is consistent with heterogeneity in the wealth effect across these groups. In addition, we find that regional house prices affect regional consumption growth. Predictable changes in house prices are correlated with predictable changes in consumption, particularly for households that are more likely to be borrowing constrained, but this effect is driven by national rather than regional house prices and is important for renters as well as homeowners, suggesting that UK house prices are correlated with aggregate financial market conditions.  

我国融资融券担保制度的法律困境与解决思路

2006年6月30日，中国证监会发布了《证券公司融资融券业务试点管理办法》，为我国融资融券业务的开展提供了具体的法律依据。《管理办法》在构建融资融券的担保制度时，充分借鉴了美国等国家和地区的做法，创造性地引入了让与担保。然而，当前我国法律尚未确立让与担保制度，这就导致了我国按照让与担保模式设定的融资融券担保制度陷入了法律困境。本文试以境外市场的成功经验为借鉴，探讨我国现行融资融券担保制度法律困境的解决思路。  

Scope of Auditors' Liability,Audit Quality,and Capital Investment

One of the fundamental issues in the discussion of auditors' liability is to whom auditors should be held liable for ordinary negligence under common law. Three judicial viewpoints prevail: the restrictive privity approach, the more liberal Restatement approach, and the most liberal foreseeability approach. To compare these three approaches from an efficiency perspective, this paper develops a model that features an owner-managed firm, an independent auditor, a continuum of unrelated lenders, and an impartial court. Double effort-incentive problems appear for the firm and the auditor. The firm has an additional incentive problem due to the sequential nature of its borrowing. This paper shows that the effort-incentive problem and the sequential borrowing problem of the firm render unambiguous improvements in audit effort/quality, capital investment, and social welfare as the judicial approach governing the scope of auditors' liability becomes more conservative.  

商业银行参与融资融券业务模式的国际比较与借鉴

融资融券业务作为一种证券信用交易,已成为海外证券市场普遍实施的成熟交易制度。不同国家或地区根据金融体系和信用环境的完善程度,采用了适合自身实际情况的融资融券模式。该文介绍了商业银行在不同融资融券业务模式中所发挥的作用,及其在集中授信模式下证券金融公司运作中所扮演的角色,并借鉴国际经验对我国商业银行参与融资融券业务进行了初步探讨。  

家庭个体特征对居民借款行为的影响——来自中国家庭的经验证据

金融市场对于支持和鼓励家庭借款进而刺激家庭消费起着愈发重要的作用。作为家庭消费金融意识的重要体现,居民借款行为正在受到更多的关注。本文认为居民家庭借款行为包含两层含义:1.家庭是否有借款;2.家庭借款渠道的选择。利用CFPS调查项目中京沪粤三省市家庭借款行为的微观数据,本文运用Logit模型和Probit模型对影响居民家庭借款行为的家庭个体特征进行了实证分析,解析了不同家庭个体特征对借款行为的影响情况,并得出有关结论与启示。  

东北老工业基地资源型城市发展接续产业中引进国外智力资源研究

资源型城市发展接续产业是振兴东北老工业基地战略的重要环节,在这一过程中应充分认识到引进国外智力资源的重要性,并根据东北资源型城市的社会经济发展水平、人力资源开发状况、技术装备和科技含量等因素,研究制定切实可行的引智政策和措施。从而为东北资源型城市发展接续产业提供强大的智力支持,推动资源型城市顺利转型。  

Benefits to Homeowners from Mortgage Portfolios Retained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Mortgage investing is the domain of financial intermediaries, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who possess specialized knowledge and experienced analytic teams. Capital is channeled to homeowner/borrowers at lower cost through such entities. As the demand for mortgage borrowing outstrips aggregate domestic saving (which is currently negative) foreign sources of capital should become even more significant. Foreign capital can be channeled efficiently into the U.S. mortgage market by Fannie and Freddie. Their debt has the highest credit standing and their risk management ability has been demonstrated by their enormous retained portfolios of mortgages.  

Optimal Loan Interest Rate Contract Design

This paper analyzes optimal loan interest rate contracts under conditions of risky, symmetric information for one-period (static) and multi-period (dynamic) models. The optimal loan interest rate depends upon the volatility of, and co-variation among the market interest rate, borrower collateral, and borrower income, as well as the time horizon and the risk preferences of lenders and borrowers. For a risk-averse borrower with stochastic collateral, variable interest rate contracts are, in general, Pareto optimal. For plausible assumptions, the optimal loan interest rate for the multi-period model often exhibits muted responses to changes in market interest rates, making fixed rate loans a reasonable approximation for the optimal loan. Hence, in the absence of optimal contracts, long-term (short-term) borrowers tend to prefer fixed rate (variable) contracts.  

The association of departures from spending rate equilibrium to municipal borrowing cost

The U.S. municipal bond market has grown dramatically in recent decades. Debt financing has become a more important source of capital for municipalities, yet research into the association of fiscal management and borrowing cost has not been directly addressed since before GASB's formation in 1984. We attempt to fill this void and contribute to the dialog concerning municipal managerial competence and its association with borrowing cost by studying a sample of 3285 county general obligation bonds over a 13-year period. We resolve conflicting and counterintuitive results in prior work and demonstrate that the lowest borrowing cost is achieved where general fund revenues equal general fund expenditures (i.e., equilibrium spending rate). Further, we find that the association between spending rate and borrowing cost is nonmonotonic, nonlinear, and asymmetric. We demonstrate that maintenance of a spending rate equilibrium point may be a way of achieving minimum borrowing cost. In the context of fiscal constraints and the increased reliance on credit markets by municipalities, managing to the spending rate equilibrium may reduce the borrowing costs of providing municipal services.  

新形势下种植大户借贷行为研究——以乌鲁木齐县为例

在2013年中央一号文件首次提出“家庭农场”的背景下，本文利用对乌鲁木齐县200户种植大户资金借贷情况调查的数据，从农户资金借贷发生率、借贷金额、借贷渠道、借贷方式及借贷用途等方面描述和分析了乌鲁木齐县种植大户的借贷行为特征，并运用Logistic模型估计种植大户借贷可得性的影响因素。研究结果表明，对农户借贷可得性产生显著影响的因素有家庭耕地面积、家庭收入水平、家庭人口数、户主年龄、文化程度、对银行贷款政策的了解程度、贷款效率等。