Testing vertical price transmission for Vietnam's Robusta coffee

Vietnam has undergone market reforms over the last three decades; and as a consequence, the coffee sector has become increasingly market‐driven. The success of the government's liberalisation policies in terms of market efficiency is investigated by examining the transmission of both positive and negative price changes for Robusta coffee between export and farmgate prices. We used a threshold vector error correction model and high‐frequency daily data. The primary result here is that of a symmetric price transmission between export and farm‐level prices. This result holds when tested with weekly price data, derived from the daily data. Farmgate prices respond faster to decreases than increases in export prices when the long‐run deviation exceeds a certain threshold. These price changes are transmitted within several days. This research also confirms the importance of transaction costs, and other price frictions mostly ignored in prior analyses for coffee.     

新中国城乡治理70年的演进逻辑

共生治理包括共生单元、共生环境、共生界面与共生模式四大要素,从共生治理的理论框架解释新中国城乡关系70年的演进逻辑有重要的现实意义。研究发现,新中国城乡治理主要经历了三次重要转型:1949-1978年的"寄生型"治理、1978-2002年的"偏利共生型"治理、2002-2017年的"非对称互惠共生型"治理、2017年之后城乡"对称互惠共生治理"理念的提出。本质上看,城市与乡村之间的结构关系折射的是中国社会的整体性变迁,城乡共生型治理遵循的是一种渐进主义的改革方案,反映的是国家政权建设中国家与农民关系的重构,最终目标是为了在对称互惠共生治理中实现城乡社区的空间正义。     

Managerial optimism: New observations on the unifying theory

Managerial optimism theory is behavioral finance's greatest achievement. It explains two prominent features of corporate financial behavior – over‐investment and pecking‐order capital structure preferences – that otherwise require two different theories with mutually incompatible assumptions about managerial loyalties to shareholder‐value maximization. After reviewing the development of managerial optimism as a unifying theory, I use a simple change of measure to transform risk‐averse optimism to risk‐neutral probabilities that can be pessimistic or optimistic depending on wealth changes. This unexplored feature has implications for, among other things, pay for performance when managers are excessively optimistic.     

Do foreign exchange forecasters apply asymmetric loss functions? Evidence from three major exchange rates

This article investigates which type of loss function is consistent with the hypothesis that major exchange rate forecasts, i.e. the euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen vis-à-vis the US dollar, are rational. We apply a comprehensive data set, which also allows us to examine different forecast horizons and heterogeneity of forecasters.     

Commemorating the 50‐Year Anniversary of Ball and Brown (1968): The Evolution of Capital Market Research over the Past 50 Years

We commemorate the 50th anniversary of Ball and Brown [1968] by chronicling its impact on capital market research in accounting. We trace the evolution of various research paths that post–Ball and Brown [1968] researchers took as they sought to build on the foundation laid by Ball and Brown [1968] to create a body of research on the usefulness, timeliness, and other properties of accounting numbers. We discuss how those paths often link back to the groundwork laid and questions originally posed in Ball and Brown [1968].     

管理层盈余预测与不对称及时性实证研究

为了分析管理层盈余预测对盈余不对称及时性之间的关系,即发布消息的时间点和内容分类对盈余不对称及时性的影响,用Basu模型分段实证检验盈余预测对盈余不对称及时性的影响、正(负)向盈余预测与不对称及时性的关系,以及当期发布的盈余预警对盈余不对称及时性的影响。结果表明,不对称及时性对公司发布的未来盈余的影响不显著,公司发布预期盈余的时间及时性主要集中在负向盈余意外,这与价格引导盈余引起更多的未来盈余预测的向下有偏的不对称及时性系数相一致,当期发布盈余预警会降低盈余与收益的不对称及时性。管理层发布内部盈余预测,有助于缓解与外部信息使用者之间的信息不对称,满足利益相关者的决策需求,进而有助于促进证券市场向半强式有效市场转化。     

Price determinants of bred heifers: Do reputations matter?

Replacement brood cows are among the most significant investments for cow-calf operations, thus crucial to profitability. Many cow-calf producers find it cost effective to purchase replacements from a reliable replacement heifer seller, though by doing so they increase risk of reproductive inefficiency due to unknown characteristics of the heifers. When important information about a product is missing to buyers, a seller can build a reputation over time that acts as signal for quality. Previous work has explored reputation effects in feeder cattle markets, but to our knowledge we are the first to explore reputation effects in bred replacement cattle markets. Using data from an annual replacement heifer sale, we analyze the values of heifer characteristics and test for premiums from reputation development. After controlling for reproductive practices, breed, and other characteristics, we find reputation does not play the role that Shapiro theorized. In this sale, the lot order is strategically chosen and may indicate bred heifer quality to buyers, replacing the need for reputation as a signal. This study highlights the importance of quality signals and regional preferences in bred replacement cattle marketing and lays the empirical groundwork for future studies to test Shapiro's theory.     

Assessing the Reliability of Self‐reported Income Information in Informal Small Business Lending through a Bogus Pipeline Experiment

Coping with asymmetric information plays a major role in successful small business lending. Our purpose is to determine if small business applicants report their income information correctly when requesting a loan. We use a randomised controlled trial bogus pipeline experiment, established during a typical cash‐flow analysis of a bank for small businesses in the Philippines. The bogus pipeline approach is commonly applied in social science and aims to increase the rate of truth telling by informing participants that answers will be verified by a lie detector. The experimental data, which include 243 observations of credit clients that are mainly from the agricultural and food value chain, served to identify asymmetric information. Additionally, debtors’ repayment behaviour for approved loans was observed by the bank. Our results indicate that loan applicants of the treatment group report lower incomes, an effect which is most pronounced in lower income quantile. Our analyses also reveal higher loan delinquencies in the control group.     

The effectiveness of monetary policy and output fluctuations: An asymmetric analysis

Previous studies have investigated asymmetries in the effects of monetary policy on the real economic activity by using either vector autoregressive (VAR)-based regime-switching models with smooth transition technique or Gaussian functions to parameterise the dynamic effects of structural shocks on the economy. These kinds of VAR models assume asymmetry as a short-run relationship between the series since the long-run neutrality hypothesis of money states that monetary policy can only affect productive capacity of the economy in the short run, but not in the long run. The recent theoretical literature shows that this hypothesis is not quite right. Thus, this paper examines the extent to which monetary policy has a long-run asymmetric effect on output in a number of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries by using a nonlinear hidden cointegration analysis within a likelihood-based panel framework. The findings indicate that there is a long-run relationship between the real interest rate as an indicator of monetary policy and the growth rate of real output in five countries out of nine under review. This gives support for the view that output has responded asymmetrically to the real interest rate changes. The economic implication of our results is that monetary policy affects positive and negative output fluctuations differently.