Speculative bubbles or market fundamentals? An investigation of US regional housing markets

This paper investigates the existence of speculative bubbles in the US national and 21 regional housing markets over three decades (1978–2015). A new method for real-time monitoring exuberance in housing markets is proposed. By taking changes in the macroeconomic conditions (such as interest rate, per-capita income, employment, and population growth) into consideration, the new method provides better control for housing market fundamentals and thereby it is expected to significantly reduce the chance of false positive identification. Compared with the method of Phillips et al. (2015a, 2015b), the new approach finds a dramatic reduction in the number of speculative housing markets and shorter bubble episodes in the US. It locates only one bubble episode in the early-to-mid 2000s over the whole sample period in the national housing market. At the regional level, it identifies two periods of speculation: late 1980s and early-to-mid 2000s. The early-to-mid 2000s bubble episode lasts longer and involves 16 metropolitan statistical areas.     

Portfolio constraints,differences in beliefs and bubbles

I propose an arbitrage-based theory of bubbles in economies with general portfolio constraints and differences in beliefs. I find that, in general, bubbles cannot exist unless the constraints restrict the demand for credit sufficiently to induce low interest rates. Speculation due to heterogeneous beliefs does not cause bubbles. Ruling out bubbles under asymmetric information requires stronger assumptions: the presence of some uninformed agents and mild portfolio restrictions (debt or borrowing constraints), or alternatively, the existence of some impatient and fully informed agents.     

Speculative attacks to currency target zones: A market microstructure approach

This paper develops a simple optimization model to characterize the behaviour of market participants during currency attacks and tests it empirically. Specifically, we test for the determinants of the timing, magnitude and chance of success of an attack. The empirical part is carried out using Mexican data, as this market provides us with an appropriate target zone framework and with a very rich dataset. We find empirical support for a set of microeconomic determinants which include: daily order flow, inventory management, intra-day price volatility, and the forward intervention-price differential. Finally, we test for the role of central bank reserves in speculative attack dynamics.     

A sectoral analysis of the financial instability hypothesis

Hyman Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) is applied to various North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) industry groups, and it is found that some sectors develop much more closely in accordance with the FIH than others. Minsky categorized firms based on the relationship between cash flow and debt service requirements: hedge finance units, whose operating revenues are adequate to service current interest and principal on their debt; speculative finance units, which can meet interest payments but cannot pay down principal; and Ponzi finance units, which cannot meet current interest payments. The FIH is related to, as well as supportive of, Austrian Business Cycle (ABC) theory, because interest rates are negatively correlated with the proportion and market value of speculative firms in several sectors.     

基于矿业监管博弈的激励约束机制研究

资源型城市地方政府在执行矿业监管权时，通常由于信息不对称及矿业政策执行力度范围限定与中央政府博弈。基于由此导致的矿业生产外部性，通过分析中央政府与地方政府各自的目标偏好和效益函数，利用经济博弈论和矩阵对策，试图寻求矿业监管存在问题的原因。文章尝试在利用行为经济学“前景理论”建模的基础上，借助贝叶斯理论分析，提出贝叶斯风险成本诱导机制，进而得出在该机制的激励约束下矿业监管倾向于帕累托有效。文章最后结合研究结论给出政策建议，为制定我国的能源资源开采政策提供了重要的理论参考。     

Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks? New evidence

Kraay [Kraay, A., 2003. Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks? Journal of International Economics 59, 297-321.] documents the lack of any systematic association between monetary policy and the outcome of a speculative attack. This paper revisits Kraay's work and modifies it by introducing an improved measure of monetary policy and an additional country-specific fundamental, short-term corporate debt, to capture balance sheet vulnerabilities emphasized by the recent currency crises literature. The results show that for low levels of short-term corporate debt, raising interest rates lowers the probability of a successful attack. This effect decreases and eventually reverses for higher levels of debt. These findings contrast earlier empirical evidence and imply a fundamental reconsideration of the role of monetary policy during currency crises.     

Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks?

Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks? Or do they have the perverse effect of increasing the probability of a devaluation of the currency under attack? Drawing on evidence from a large sample of speculative attacks in developed and developing economies, this paper argues that the answer to both questions is ‘no’. In particular, this paper documents a striking lack of any systematic association whatsoever between interest rates and the outcome of speculative attacks. The lack of clear empirical evidence on the effects of high interest rates during speculative attacks mirrors the theoretical ambiguities on this issue.     

Evidence on the existence of speculative bubbles in farmland prices

We conduct tests for the contribution of speculative bubbles to farmland prices. These tests are carried out under the hypothesis that farmland investors rationally form expectations. The outcome of tests reported here allows us to infer whether farmland prices are determined by market fundamentals-discounted returns from the highest economic land use-or whether rumors about farmland price movements are self-fulfilling. The tests are stationarity and cointegration tests relating farmland prices to rents. The tests are carried out using data from three farm production regions-the Corn Belt, the Northern Plains, and the Lake States. In each region, we find little evidence to reject the hypothesis that market fundamentals determine farmland prices.     

浅谈我国房地产政策——以房价的过快上涨所引发的思考

我国近些年来经济突飞猛进的发展,其背后房地产对CDP的拉动功不可没,特别在金融危机中,大幅拉动内需,成为我国实体经济的支柱产业,但随着需求增大,房价节节攀升,购房困难成为百姓实现小康生活的头号难题。本文就房价过高产生的原因,以及如何看待我国的房地产政策谈了几点看法,并针对高房价提出了几点对策建议。     

User costs and bubbles in land markets

In asset markets with speculative behavior, the long-run equilibrium relationship between asset prices and the discounted flow of future rents may become invalid. We distinguish short-term user costs and longer-term user costs with variables that reflect fundamentals. We show how to work around the empirical problem of measuring speculative expectations about asset price changes and derive a simple user cost formula where the asset price change in the short-term relationship comes out as the long-run change in the overall price level.